Poetry – NEARING THE END OF THE LINE. By

GAS PUMP JOCKEY WITH THE SPOOKY

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And now for something completely different.” –Monty Python’s Flying Circus

(Please click below and follow along with the lyrics)

GAS PUMP JOCKEY WITH THE SPOOKY SMILE^©

I’m the gas pump jockey with the spooky smile

Pull in for fuel if it’s been a while

Come on in, you’ve traveled many a mile

I’m the gas pump jockey with the spooky smile

I promise you I won’t bite your dog

Or expect very much dialogue

I’ll wave at your kids, smile at your wife

I’ll probably be here for the rest of my life

I’m the gas pump jockey with the spooky smile

Pull in for fuel if it’s been a while

Come on in, you’ve traveled many a mile

I’m the gas pump jockey with the spooky smile

I’ll check your oil if you want me to

I’ll wash your windshield till it looks like new

Pay by credit, pay by cash

Yes I’ll even throw out your trash

I’m into ???? and my hair is long

I like a country and western song

I still take tips occasionally

I’m the best pump attendant I could ever be

I’m not all that handy but I’ll fix your flar

I wear the company logo hat

Wind, sleet, rain or snow

The customer’s always right you know

Regular, mid-grade, or supreme

I am here to fulfill your dream

Tire’s flat, needs some air

I got a gauge and I’ll be right there

I’m the gas pump jockey with the spooky smile

Pull in for fuel if it’s been a while

Come on in, you’ve traveled many a mile

I’m the gas pump jockey with the spooky smile

Pull in for fuel if it’s been a while

Come on in, you’ve traveled many a mile

I’m the gas pump jockey with the spooky smile

(This song was composed and performed by an actual gas station attendant, albeit one with a creative and humbly self-deprecating sense of humor at times. One who lived with a big monkey of a MUSEon his back that relentlessly compelled him to compose and record songs all about 75% of whatever might come down the pike of his experience. And what had come down the pike in the case of the goofy smile was a trip to a dentist and, consequently, an embarrassing gap-toothed grin.)

All my life I’ve been an observer, discoverer, and sharer of what appears (to me) as the interestingly unusual. Such finds entertain me, teach me a little more about the world I live in, and make for intriguing conversation with others. I’m a storyteller after all, so interesting and unusual tidbits are my bread and butter. But see, in this blog it’s my job to share with you a motley variety of “roadside attractions” I’ve picked up along the turnpike of my own journey. Basically I suppose that makes me kind of a local yokel version of one of those washed-up History Channel celebrities, like William Shatner hosting The Unexplained.

And this particular singer/songwriter is just one more subject of my many episodes of Tom Lyford’s The Interestingly Unusual.

Joel was nothing if not an amazingly indefatigable songwriter. The good, the bad, and the ugly? All of it was fodder for the imaginings that would inlay their way into his various rock and roll, blues, folk, patriotic and/or protest songs, country and western ballads, and tributes. And this guy conjured up hundreds of songs. Literally. I would know, because I was the friend who voluntarily recorded a library of most of his output. On CDs.

I’m talking CDs you’ve never seen nor even heard of though, CDs featuring a singer/songwriter who’s “as unknown as they get” (to use the artist’s own words). How’s this for odd: pouring a lifetime of effort into productions destined to be sampled by exactly no one! Well, except for the same old baker’s dozen of his very few close friends (which you could count with the fingers of one hand) and family.

Despite the fact that Joel’s output was industrious, he viewed much of his talent and work with humility.

(Please click on the link below, and follow along)

SONGWRITER^©

There’s cats and hacks and geniuses

Takes all kinds in the music biz

Some will make the Hall of Fame

Or become a forgotten name

Some will last on radio

Their popularity will grow

Some fade to obscurity

Playin’ clubs for a modest fee

I am a songwriter who ain’t

made the Big Time yet

I’m as unknown as they get

I am a songwriter who would

love to write a hit…

This one isn’t it.

Some develop fans for life

Other than their mom and wife

Some draw numbers quite obscene

Rolling Stones or Bruce Springsteen

Some attract a college crowd

Mellow, rockin’, soft or loud

Music that is hot and hip

Makes’em all wanna dance and strip

I am a songwriter who would

love to sell a song,

but they all come out wrong

I am a songwriter who could use a

brand new car

Please make me a star

I’ve never written anything

that’s revolutionary

I won’t set a music trend

I’m very ordinary

If a wrote an awesome tune

then maybe I could score

a platinum selling number one

and take it out on tour

There are those who have the gift

They’ve got talent, get the drift

Others, they could write all day

Still have nothing good to play

Some write songs spontaneously

Others craft them carefully

Some write stuff that really sucks

And still it makes them megabucks

I am a songwriter who has never

made a dime

Singing his own rhyme

I am a songwriter with a

guitar in his lap

Who made up this crap

Someday I might write the one

that turns a million ears

If it takes a hundred years

Joel, the singer/songwriter. I was his biggest fan. I’ve selected here a variety of what I consider to be among Joel’s best. I realize his music may not be for everyone. But I’ve always felt it was a shame that his stuff never really got to see more of the light of day. So… I’m just here to give him his due. Posthumously.

Some Odds and Ends About Joel’s Life

The Beginning

Hanging out in the band room (at the expense of his English, math, science, and social studies) was the only thing that motivated Joel in school. In the music department’s classrooms he took piano and guitar lessons, and this led to music becoming an integral part of his life. The idea of becoming a lifelong musician was suddenly all he could think and dream about.

At some point in high school, he made the rash decision to drop out. He was going to put together a band. And he did. More than one. But the very idea of a rocker’s exciting lifestyle, even in middle school back in the 70’s and 80’s, invited rock musicians to take certain risks.

Click on the link below to follow along:

CRISPY FRIED^©

First time I ever got high was behind the school

I laughed my fool head off and thought I was cool

I sold my record collection just for dope and cash

Must have cost a new car into smoke and ash

Crispy fried to a crackly crunch

So damn wasted so out to lunch

Crispy fried to a crackly crunch

It’s too much

First time I ever got drunk was on a bottle of wine

It cost me 99 cents and almost made me blind

Next mornin’ I had a head felt like a medicine ball

That’s been bounced up and down and around the hall

Crispy fried to a crackly crunch

So damn wasted so out to lunch

Crispy fried to a crackly crunch

It’s too much

At fifteen I thought I was hip

Dancin’ around in my very first acid trip

First time I tried cocaine I got a wicked good buzz

It became one of my favorite loves

More than once I was snorting to a pile

Spillin’ it all over the bathroom tile

Crispy fried to a crackly crunch

So damn wasted so out to lunch

Crispy fried to a crackly crunch

It’s too much

I did a lot for a long time to my brain

Now it looks like I might never be the same

Crispy fried to a crackly crunch

So damn wasted so out to lunch

Crispy fried to a crackly crunch

It’s too much

Crispy fried to a crackly crunch

So damn wasted so out to lunch

Crispy fried to a crackly crunch

It’s too much

And consequently Joel ended up having a dark and wildly adventurous past. He got drafted into the Army. But of course the fact that he’d never had any patience with authority figures didn’t bode too well for him militarily. So duh, that didn’t end well.

He went A.W.O.L.

He took off on one of those rite-of-passage cross-country odysseys with little but his guitar and backpack, all by his lonesome. And when his bus fare cash ran out, he hitch-hiked and took up some odd jobs along the way. He made it a good three quarters of the way to the Pacific Ocean before some grifters who’d offered him a ride just drove off with both his guitar and backpack while he was in a convenience store.

He turned himself in at a nearby Air Force base. Was arrested and returned to the Army. Where he convinced his superiors that he was never going to be a soldier, and was (I imagine dishonorably) discharged. And then he was right back in his little old hometown of Dexter, Maine where there were few prospects, and even fewer for a hopeful musician. He got a job at a shoe factory and made enough dough to eke out a life. Got a new guitar and joined a band or two. And composed songs.

Click the link below to follow along:

IF THE MILL SHUTS DOWN^©

I punch in at seven and I’m out by five

I don’t make much money but I do survive

I was homegrown here in this factory town

But there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

No, there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

Imports are hurting the economy

Our standard of living is in jeopardy

The working man pays for the rich man’s crown

But there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

No, there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

The foreman is asking for volunteers

take the lay-off slip, first time in years

And the supervisor wears a crown

”Cause there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

No, there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

We’ve been cut back to thirty-two hours a week

The industry’s future looks mighty bleak

And this is the only job left around

So there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

No, there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

I punch in at seven and I’m out by five

I don’t make much money but I do survive

I was homegrown here in this factory town

But there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

No, there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

I punch in at seven and I’m out by five

I don’t make much money but I do survive

I was homegrown here in this factory town

But there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

No, there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

Imports are hurting the economy

Our standard of living is in jeopardy

The working man pays for the rich man’s crown

But there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

No, there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

The foreman is asking for volunteers

take the lay-off slip, first time in years

And the supervisor wears a crown

But there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

No, there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

We’ve been cut back to thirty-two hours a week

The industry’s future looks mighty bleak

And this is the only job left around

So there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

No, there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

I punch in at seven and I’m out by five

I don’t make much money but I do survive

I was homegrown here in this factory town

But there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

No, there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

Joel married, had a daughter he loved dearly, and got divorced. And time passed

I met him back in the early 90s. Turned out he and I both had one friend in common. Ever hear of him? Some old guy named Bill W. We didn’t hit it off right away. We were from different worlds. I was the high school English teacher, and 50+% of America’s population ends up not liking English teachers. Joel was one of those in the negative 50. He had a kind of gaunt, scruffy look about him, always showing up in an old beat-up Army field jacket. He never spoke much. Kept to himself a lot. His appearance (to me) cried outlaw. And I made him out to be a stoner. And I was right.

We were two different kinds of cat. We had little in common. At least not until I discovered his favorite musicians were exactly the same as mine! Bob Dylan, The Stones, Neil Young, The Beatles, Tom Waits, Bruce Springsteen, Steve Earle, John Hiatt, Tom Petty, Eric Clapton, Warren Zevon, Townes Van Zandt, and Willie Nelson. And then lo and behold, it turned out that he was into poetry too, especially the Beat Poets and Outlaw Poetry. Hey, so was I. And then on top of that I discovered he was literate! Not just literate. Very literate. Sure, he was a drop out, but over the years since high school he’d gone on to become a life-long reader, an aficionado of the great classics, the poets, the histories, and the philosophers. He had a library card and used it. He’d become a knowledgeable, self-educated soul. I mean, he was only one of two guys I ever knew who’d actually read War and Peace cover to cover. And no, I wasn’t the other one.

I found myself wondering, Who IS this guy?

Well for one thing, he was this counter-culture freak deep into Jack Kerouac. And when I heard him perform his “Jack Kerouac” at an open-mic one night, I had to sit up and take notice.

Click the link below to follow along:

JACK KEROUAC^©

Jack was rad, Jack was mad.

Kerouac was the most beautiful we had

Jack would rage, Jack he gave

The very best he had to give

to Burma Shave

Jack and Neal were the deal.

Jack would hitch hike

Neal drove everything he’d steal

Smoking tea on benzedrine

They would rap all night

With Neal behind the wheel

Where was Jack Kerouac at?

Did he have beatific vision?

Would he come back with a rap

For all of us?

Where was Jack Kerouac at?

It could have been a good decision

If he’d plugged his deadly jug

And join the bus.

Doctor Sax hit the facts

Layin’ down the beat refrain

With railroad tracks

And he showed through his code

That he had the most gone rhythm

On the road

Where was Jack Kerouac at?

Did he have beatific vision?

Would he come back with a rap

For all of us?

Where was Jack Kerouac at?

It could have been a good decision

If he’d plugged his deadly jug

And join the bus.

Kesey begged him, “Come along

And find a brand new trip.”

But with Jack that tired song

Was sunken like a ship.

He’d become the Dharma bum

Who would drink his Toquay wine

to get all numb

Off he’d go on his floe

From his Massachusetts home

to Mexico

Where was Jack Kerouac at?

Did he have beatific vision?

Would he come back with a rap

For all of us?

Where was Jack Kerouac at?

It could have been a good decision

If he’d plugged his deadly jug

And join the bus.

Where was Jack Kerouac at?

And then? And THEN…? Well, it turned out that like me, he was also a big fan of the sleaze bag novelist and poet, Charles “Hank” Bukowski! I couldn’t believe it. One of my underground favorites. And when I heard him sing his very own “Bukowski” at an open-mic, I was knocked for a loop for a loop.

BUKOWSKI^©

Screenshot

Click the link below to follow along:

Charles Bukowski lived a life of drunken, squalid raunch

With pitted face and tiny hands and alcoholic paunch

Writing the tales of a dirty old man was Charlie’s bread and butter

Lived on whiskey, wine, and beer– his mind was in the gutter

Hot damn, Bukowski, I woulda had a drink with you

A literate kind of scoundrel who wouldn’t turn down a screw

Hot damn Bukowski, a novelist and a cad

You sit upon my book shelf spillin’ the best of what you had

About the lowlife laureate of American literature

So worthy and jaded his poetry was pure

He wrote a screenplay called Barfly, based upon his youth

Drinkin’ and fightin’ in alley ways, man, he tells the truth

Hot damn, Bukowski, I woulda had a drink with you

A literate kind of scoundrel who wouldn’t turn down a screw

Hot damn Bukowski, a novelist and a cad

You sit upon my book shelf spillin’ the best of what you had

And they called him Hank

And he always drank

Loved many a skank

Took it to the bank!

He worked for a while sorting mail, post office in LA

Hanging out with whores and gambling all his blues away

He became the darling of the LA underground

And ended up in Hollywood, the Toast of Tinsel Town

Hot damn, Bukowski, I woulda had a drink with you

A literate kind of scoundrel who wouldn’t turn down a screw

Hot damn Bukowski, a novelist and a cad

You sit upon my book shelf spillin’ the best of what you had

And they called him Hank

And he always drank

Loved many a skank

Took it to the bank!

Well, hot damn, Bukowski, I woulda had a drink with you

A literate kind of scoundrel who wouldn’t turn down a screw

Hot damn Bukowski, a novelist and a cad

You sit upon my book shelf spillin’ the best of what you had

So we started visiting each other. And then we did it. We became frends. Good friends, though strange bedfellows for sure. We spilled our guts to each other about our long, often unhappy lives.

Joel was many things. A member of a pretty sketchy looking rock band, The Breakers. He was an admitted alcoholic. Plus he’d experimented and gotten hooked on and off every drug known to man, plus a few others. Even acid. I was way out of his league. Overall he’d striven to live a life as raunchy as his patron saint himself and, like Bukowski, he was no stranger to the occasional jail cell or two. Plus from what I learned, his life had also been one long, dangerous, sexually permissive adventure. Half the songs he wrote were rife with wild women who’d populated his life.

I don’t know how successful he actually was at the dating game, but he’d outgrown that part of his life by the time I met him. He still missed it of course. Because Joel had been, and still was, a Don Juan wannabe. His songlist was laden with a prurient and randy nostagia.

Click to follow along:

HEY LITTLE WOMAN^©

You’ve got an innocence that’s real appealin’

But it’s not just your heart that I’d be stealin’

You ain’t that pretty and you got no leg

But I’d be willin’ to sit up and beg

Hey little woman, where you goin’ tonight?

How’d your daddy ever let you out of his sight?

Hey little woman where you goin’ to roam?

Don’t you have a daddy waitin’ for you at home?

You make an older boy feel much younger

Somethin’ about you makes me ache with hunger

I’m the big bad wolf wishin’ that he could

Pull up with little Red Ridin’ Hood

Hey little woman, where you goin’ tonight?

How’d your daddy ever let you out of his sight?

Hey little woman where you goin’ to roam?

Don’t you have a daddy waitin’ for you at home?

I got to tell you it’s a rare occasion

I wish I had the powers of persuasion

I’d cast a spell to last a week or two

So I could get a little taste of you

Hey little woman, where you goin’ tonight?

How’d your daddy ever let you out of his sight?

Hey little woman where you goin’ to roam?

Don’t you have a daddy waitin’ for you at home?

Hey hey little woman, where you goin’ tonight?

How’d your daddy ever let you out of his sight?

Hey hey little woman where you goin’ to roam?

Don’t you have a daddy waitin’ for you at home?

Waitin’ for you at home?

I know Joel was feeling betrayed by the aging process.

When I’d gotten to know him, he was a loner who kept himself squirreled away in his little rented apartment with his pencils and notebooks, his guitar, his stereo, his cassette tape recorder, and a cat named Crash. There he worked his craft like a monk in a monastery, writing day after day. Rewriting. Recording his rough drafts. Listening to the playbacks booming out on that megawatt stereo (and how the apartment dwellers in that building didn’t call the cops with noise complaints I’ll never know). And then going back to the drawing board all over again. For more.

The solitary life took its toll. I know he preferred to be alone, but at the same time missed company.

He was constantly taking inventory of himself in is songs. He was good at that, stepping outside of himself and doing self-exams. His lifestyle may’ve been unhealthy, but his habits inspired his dark, razor sharp lyrics. Joel was nothing, if not a lyricist.

Cli4ck the link to follow along

HAUNTED MANSION^©

There are shadows in the corners

Of all my memories

Crumbling moral failings

Have often haunted me

Phantasms of perversions

Have moaned their sorry wail

Within the walls of conscience

So prickly and pale

I’m like a haunted mansion

Ramshackled and run down

That seems a little creepy

No one comes around

And like a haunted mansion

There are ghosts to find

On every languid level

Loom within my mind

Indulgence demonized me

I’ve been so damn depraved

I even spooked my own self

To think how very grave

And wanton was my evil

The spectres stalk me still

In every room and hallway

On every floor until

I’m like a haunted mansion

Ramshackled and run down

That seems a little creepy

No one comes around

And like a haunted mansion

There are ghosts to find

On every languid level

Loom within my mind

I’m sitting right in plain view

Of any who live near

And ‘cause they may not know me

Their hearts may fill with fear

Should they hear the rumors

That surely can be spread

About this mansion’s history

And all its awful dread

I’m like a haunted mansion

Where children dare not play

And forces would destroy you

If they could have their way

This poor old battered building

Is in need of repair

It needs the light of reason

To shine on it with care

I’m like a haunted mansion

Ramshackled and run down

That seems a little creepy

No one comes around

And like a haunted mansion

There are ghosts to find

On every languid level

Loom within my mind

Like a haunted mansion

The man wrote and wrote and wrote. And I feel privileged to have been welcomed to spend so many hours, days, weeks, and months of his life– me, sitting at his kitchen table while he, sitting across from me with guitar in lap, played me some brand new one he’d just started working on maybe, or one he felt and hoped was a done deal. And he allowed me to be a tiny part of his process, using me as a soundboard now and then.

I’ll tell you what I love about Joel’s songwriting. His lyrics. In so many of his songs it’s the imagery, and the way he’d string well-chosen words together for the greatest effect. I would loved to have had him as a student in one of my English classes.

I’ll also tell you what I love about Joel. His honesty, his humility and his courage. He was one of the most honest men I’ve ever met.

He was a best friend. And yes, our relationship was one of opposites, The “strange bed fellows” thing. Butit was a soul adventure for me. And our friendship spanned more than a couple of decades.

THIS SONG MAY NOT BE WORTH MUCH^©

Click the link to follow along:

This song can’t change the weather

This song can’t brush your teeth

This song does not wear leather

This song won’t cause you grief

This song is not too heavy

This song can’t read the news

This song may not be worth much

But to tell you I love you

This song won’t win a Grammy

This song won’t make a pass

This song won’t paint your fanny

This song won’t give you gas

This song won’t make you lonesome

This song won’t make you blue

This song may not be worth much

But to tell you I love you

This song ain’t hard to follow

It speaks a simple language

This song is getting hungry,

Won’t you feed this song a sandwich

This song won’t wash your dishes

This song won’t clean your clothes

This song won’t grant your wishes

This song won’t blow your nose

This song may not do nothing

That you would like it to

This song may not be worth much

But to tell you I love you

This song is kind of clumsy

This song is quite a clod

This song may have two left feet

This song is rather odd

This song can’t change your tire

This song is always broke

This song can’t start a fire

This song can’t tell a joke

This song can’t put your pants on

This song can’t tie your shoe

This song may not be worth much

But to tell you I love you

This song is not self-righteous

It doesn’t preach or judge

This song can love all of mankind

This song can’t hold a grudge

This song can’t change the station

On you big HG TV

This song is on vacation

More or less permanently

This song has no opinions

No agenda to push through

This song may not be worth much

But to tell you I love you

JOEL (1958-2022)

Missing you, old friend

(Wait a moment for encore)

Seated on our front porch

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PENITENTIARY FOR TODDLERS PART II

“You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink… BUT you can make him wish he did” –Mrs. L.eighton, kindergarten teacher

Day four or thereabouts of my first year ever in a school. Half-pint kindergartner seated over by the windows. It’s flag saluting time. Every morning we all stand up from our seats, stare way up at the flag, place our tiny hands over our hearts and, all together, do something called “Pledging the Allegiance.”

The sun is shining brightly outside through the window this morning. But I’m talking way too bright! It’s somehow “dazzling” the flag again. Hard to explain. I mean, I don’t know if there’s something wrong with my eyes or what. All I can tell you is when I’m staring at the flag with the bright sunlight on it, all the reds and whites and blue are like blurring together! Making my eyes smart. It’s the brightness stinging them, making them water like crazy, and turning the whole flag (and everything else I look around at) into an eye-stinging blur. It hurts like staring right at the sun itself!

So... just like yesterday, I squinch my eyes totally shut and keep’em shut.

But just as the pledging thing is winding down, something snatches my arm and gives it a painful yank! I pop my eyes open and , in the blur, make out this tall, Halloweenish shape next to me. I try to jerk myself away, but no dice! And as my focus returns, I see it’s… Mrs. Leighton!

“MISTER!“

She’s talking like she’s really mad. at somebody. Enunciating every word crystal clear.

“When WE are PLEDGING the ALLEGIANCE to the FLAG, we keep our eyes ON said flag!”

This is all so… I don’t understand. But I say “Only… my eyes. They…”

“…Were NOT ON the flag! Yes, I know!! Nor were they YESTERDAY!”

I’m confused and terrified. I mean, what’s happening? But trying again, even though my voice has practically disappeared down into my stomach, “But… my eyes! I can’t keep them ope…”

“Well, young man, you WILL figure out a way to be keeping them open TOMORROW. WON’T you! Now take your seat!”

“But I…”

“TAKE! SEAT!”

I want to try again but she’s already walking away from me, back to her desk.

So I just sort of crumble back down into mine, swallow my sobs so she won’t hear them. And there’s only one thing going on in my head. I want my Ma! Why did she make me come here!? I just wanna go home!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Let’s talk about this.

If, when you first saw my title, Penitentiary for Toddlers, you were taken aback, I get that. Pretty abrasive. Too harsh a metaphor. A pretty mean-spirited exaggeration, maybe. Especially in conjoining “penitentiary” with a word as soft as “Toddlers.” Inappropriate. Even unthinkable. Because we are talking kindergarten here, aren’t we. Subprimary. Little people’s school. So yes, it does sound too harsh at first, and maybe you’re asking yourself, What was he thinking when he pulled that one out of his hat?! That’s fair.

Well, I’m the one who, in 1946, commenced living (straight from the maternity ward) as a pathologically shy, sawed-off runt of the litter afraid of his own shadow. Who’d peek out his bedroom window and see only a jungle out there! So. By age five, it had never have even occurred to me that I might someday dare to venture out from behind Mom’s apron strings, let alone spend any amount of time somewhere beyond the family property. I loved my home and family. I was content. I was a house cat. I was all set up for life, right there in the family home. I was never going to leave the safety of the nest. Ever. Simple as that.

But then, KINDERGARTEN dropped out of the sky on me like a ton of bricks! And after Ma dragged me up the sidewalk kicking and screaming, only to abandon me on some fenced-in, prison “playground,” leaving me surrounded by hordes of not-at-all-like-me scarecrow inmates, each a foot taller than me… I felt like Humpty Dumpty pushed off the wall from behind. It was The Apocalypse. I’d been reduced to a sobbing orphan. Me, the mama’s boy, a little drama queen, I admit it. I should’ve been made of sterner stuff. I know that. But… we are what we are.

So. There was nothing good, and everything bad, about Pleasant Street Elementary World. And I was a quivering little stranger in a strange land.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Bathroom rules.

First off, it was “The Basement,” not “the bathroom.” Which made no sense. Because from the way I was brought up, who’d ever want to go to the bathroom down in the cellar? The cat, maybe.

I mean, it would never have occurred to me in a million years that anybody might have a toilet in the cellar. We sure as heck didn’t. And hey, I’d been potty-trained, OK? But because, you know, we had a cellar with a dirt floor, I just assumed everybody did. Which also made me a little redneck, I suppose.

Now, say you needed to go to the bathroom. To start the application process, you must first raise your hand to be eligible for the basement pass. Then when called upon, stand up, after which you’d have to politely ask “May I go to The Basement, please?” But then… even worse than that, you must publicly confess before God, your teacher, and every boy and girl in the classroom whether your particular need was for a “Number One” (to take a leak) or the even more unspeakable “Number Two.”

Now how do you suppose my self-esteem fared after that? I mean… my “business” was my business!

And “going to the basement” at Pleasant Street School meant having to tip-toe all alone down, down, and way down a giant staircase where it was always a little scary dark. Rough stone walls, cave walls really, towered above you as you tiptoed into The Mazes down there. Where with one wrong turn…? Why, you might accidentally stumble into the hot, grumbling room where what looked like a humongous version of the Tin Man’s head was bolted to the floor; and an orange flame flickered behind its vented, furnace eye-slot; with its huge, tubular arms branched out overhead like some big robot spiders’ legs.

Or Who knows? You might even go missing down there.

So anyway, — the Normal Bathroom Days were apparently over. It was to be Potty Training 2.0 from then on.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

But I digress. Because the building itself, terrifying though it seemed, wasn’t actually the worst thing about Pleasant Street School, OK? And it wasn’t even that the teachers there were all old ladies (which they were). No. It was just the one particular old lady that I got stuck with. The mean one. The real Old Maid of the deck.

Mrs. Leighton. The one that made me feel sick to my stomach every single day. The one who bogarted my confidence, self-esteem, and ego once and for all under the steel toe of her combat boot.

Why couldn’t I have gotten Miss Doore??? The one that all the kids loved. Because if I’d gotten Miss Doore, I seriously doubt I’d be sitting here today, typing out this dark little memoir. But here I am. And doing exactly that.

Que sera, sera.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

You know, I do have to admit that back in 2005 when my first poetry book, Pleasant Street, came out, I took quite a bit of flak about that poem. One local critic, namely His Honor, Judge Kevin Stitham (an eventual ‘frienemy’ of mine) came marching straight into the library where I was working behind the desk, practically shoved the poem right in my face, and demanded to know, “Would you have the guts to read this aloud to our community’s hallowed teacher saint, Miss Doore, face to face if she were alive today (may she rest in peace)???”

The answer was no. Of course not. When I was in kindergarten, I would have died to have Miss Doore.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

But before I really get under way, if it please the court, allow me to submit this true anecdote as a testament to my character on my own behalf:

One day, many years after I had first published the poem, I happened to find myself standing knee-deep in a snowed-in parking lot downtown, I was just chewing the fat with a crew of the town’s D. O. T. snow removers. They were on their break. One of them, a rough looking sort sizing me up, said, “You’re that poet guy, ain’tcha.”

Well, didn’t that just make me cringe. Because there I was, the retired high school English teacher and one-time “poet” of sorts (in other words a totally useless guy where this gang of hard working humans who actually earned their livings by the sweat off their backs in the Real World of Hard, Honest Labor might be concerned) being addressed by this blue collar fella you’d peg right away as one of those English-class-hating high school kids with absolutely no use whatsoever for something as stupid as… poetry.

“Uhmmm, I guess. So… why do you ask?”

With a surprisingly friendly, whiskered-face grin, he said “Hell, my wife bought your book. And she pointed out that Pleasant Street School poem to me. And when I started readin’ it… well, didn’t I just start to laughin’! See, I went there too, way back. And I’m tellin’ you boys, man oh man, didn’t this guy here just hit the friggin’ nail right on the head there! Lemme tell you something: that school wasn’t no picnic. Not by a long shot! And this guy here? Oh, he got it right alright!”

My God, I was thinking! Did I have a fan? An actual, working-class fan? You mean, somebody out there in the real world actually read one of my poems? And then… liked it? I was about to cry. I probably blushed. When did things like this ever happen?

But then the strangest, most wonderful, thing! A few others in that work crew joined in, telling their own Pleasant Street School war stories. And there was laughter, some of it grim. But… incredible! We actually had a discussion going on, a poetry discussion, by God! Over something I’d written! I couldn’t believe it. I was in seventh heaven.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Now ladies and gentlemen of the jury, let’s remind ourselves where on the historic timeline we can place Little Tommy’s kindergarten experience: 1951. Over seven decades ago. In another century. Back in the day when primary school teachers were expected pretty much not to love (or even necessarily like) their students. Because that’s not what they were being paid for. Back in the days when corporal punishment was all the rage, as common as baked beans and brown bread for dinner every stinking Saturday night. When everybody simply knew if you spared the rod, you spoiled the child. And back when if you got disciplined at school, well, the last thing you’d do is run straight home and rat your teacher out, because you knew then you’d be getting it even worse at home. Yes, I’m talking way back when that old song was still popular: “Readin’ and writin’ and ‘rithmetic, taught to the tune of a hickory stick.”

So it’s fair to say that all teachers were not so warm and fuzzy as they are now.

But how mean was Mrs. Leighton?

SO mean that one time when the entire student population was about to have a visiting doctor-and-nurse team administer some required inoculation or other into our scrawny little arms, she called me personally to the front of the room. She was always making fun of me for being such a frightened little wimp. So, in this instance, Old Lady Leighton was more than happy to put on a little comedy skit at my expense for the rest of the class. I’d be her ventriloquist dummy

“Well Tommy, we all know how terrified you are of needles…”

Actually a lot of us were as nervous as cows heading to the slaughter house about needles, but I had them beat. I was the Town Crier.

“So you’ll be happy to know…”

( Happy to know WHAT? )

“…that if you want, when it’s our turn to go to the gymnasium, you won’t have to go.”

“What? Really…?”

“I thought you might be more comfortable going with your older brother, Dennis, when his class is called to the gymnasium.”

(moan) “Oh.”

“How does that sound?”

(groan)

“Would that be OK?”

Me thinking and hoping here that if I got to go with Denny, maybe I could just disappear for a bit and go hide in The Basement so they’d just think maybe I ‘d got my shot, and…

“Tommy…?”

“Uhhmmm… yuh… I guess.”

Now, I swear that little noncommital response of mine brought a sudden gleam to her eyes! “OK then! That’s great! Guess what! Your brother’s class is on their way to the gym RIGHT NOW! This very minute!”

I was like, WHAT???

“And that’s the school secretary. Right there in the doorway. She’s here to escort you…”

“Wait! I uhmm… I guess… I changed my mind…”

“Too late.” And she’s already hustling me over toward the doorway where the school secretary is waiting like the prison chaplain, to escort me down Death Row!

“Bye bye,” she chirps, musically.

“No. See, I changed my… hey, I don’ wanna go right now, OK? I wanna go with the class now!”

The secretary’s hand has formed a handcuff on my wrist. And we’re already moving down the hallway.

“But I said I don’ wanna! I don’ wanna go! I don’ wanna!”

In the gym, they could hear me coming, long before I got there.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

She was SO mean that every once in a while, one of our moms might just, you know, pop into our classroom unannounced on the pretext that they just wanted to catch another little glimpse of our marvelous education in action. Or something like that. I don’t really remember, or know, exactly how they framed it. I was too young, and it was too long ago. And probably it only actually happened three or four times if the truth be known. But I know it did happen. I remember us kids feeling so grateful that we were lucking out, as it put old lady Leighton on her best behavior, even only if it were for an hour or so. And we knew that our temporary classroom mom knew exactly what she was doing: giving us suffering convicts a little moral support.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

She was SO mean that seven decades later her name surprisingly popped up in a casual conversation I was having with one Barbara Lockwood, a sweet, retired primary school teacher and current librarian I worked with at the local library. Somehow we’d gotten onto the topic of how school’s had evolved in so many different ways since the medieval Fifties. Always the story teller, I’d launched into a number of my epic Mrs. Leighton memories, and had just finished up with the fact that as a second-grader, I’d learned that old lady Leighton had fallen down some stairs and broken a leg. “And shame on me,” I’d confessed, “but I have to say that the news had, what… put a cheery spring in my step at the thought of it?”

But then I noticed that she was looking at me solemnly for a bit, with a furrowed brow, and I thought, Damn, I’ve said too much. So I quickly tried to cover my tracks with, “Hey, I’m sorry if what I said offended you…” but she cut me off.

“No, Tom, nothing like that at all. Just the opposite. You probably don’t know it, but I worked for a few years under her when she was our principal at that school.”

“Hey. No kidding? No, I didn’t. Know.”

“Well,” she went on, “I’m here to say she was one of the darkest… most mean-spirited women I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. I’m saying that she kept all of us teachers terrified. Of being written up. Of losing our jobs. All of us. And oh, she enjoyed keeping all of us walking on eggshells all the time.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

She was SO mean (I’ve saved one of the best one for last here) that the following little incident is the one that broke the camel’s back, so to speak. The one that did me in. I even wrote a second poem about her and this particular episode and dedicated to His Honor, Kevin Stitham, in order to further make my case. And I’ve got to say this: how very therapeutic it was for me to get this memory out of my system and into print…

Let me set the stage. It was another long day in Gertrude Leighton’s classroom. Very pin-drop silent, except for the sounds of joyful activity coming from Miss Doore’s classroom next door. I’d been staring out the window at the shade trees lining the fence for so long, I’d become entranced. In my mind, I was out there sitting free as a bird under one of those maples. Truth, I pretty much was more out there than in the classroom. I was having one of my daily out-of-body experiences, AKA, daydreaming again.“

“Stone walls do not a prison make,” after all.

But someone grinding a pencil in the pencil sharpener snapped me out of my revery. I blinked a couple of times and looked around. Uh-oh! Something was terribly wrong! All of my classmates’ seats were empty! Where in the world was everyone? I didn’t know. But I knew that being left behind was gonna mean trouble for me!

And then I spotted them all lined up over against the far wall in a line that ended in front of Mrs. Leighton’s desk! Holy cow! I had no idea whatsoever why, but I knew I was supposed to be in that line! And I had to get over there! But I knew that if I stood up and made a hasty retreat across the classroom, she’d spot me for sure with her owlish eyes! But what other choice did I have?

So I stood up v e r y s l o w l y. And in my best s l o w m o t i o n, I oozed along the back wall and made it to the rear of the line without detection.

Phew! I was gonna be alright after all. The line was inching forward at spaced intervals. In no time I’d be appearing at her desk. Yessir, there I’d be alright. Just as I was supposed to be. Just like everybody else. Nothing to see here, heh heh. No obvious laws broken.

But thank goodness I’d come to just in time!.

I looked left and saw that a number of kids had already returned to their desks. But… hold on! Wait a second. Every kid now had a piece of white paper lying mysteriously on their desktops. What was the white paper for? I didn’t know anything about any paper! I was pretty sure I felt my sphincter contract.

And meanwhile the line continued its forward movement. Desperately curious, now, I craned myself a foot or so to the left and scouted ahead. And froze! Each of the three kids in front of me were holding a little square little slip of white paper as well! WHY?! What was going on? And where in the world was I going to lay my hands on one of those in a hurry??

And that’s when I knew that I was doomed.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Here’s a little piece of creative writing that tells the rest of the story…

THE LONG ARM OF LEIGHTON’S LAW

“What we have here… is a failure to communicate…” – Captain, Road Prison 36, Cool Hand Luke

I was no kindergarten Cool Hand Luke, doing my time in Leighton’s lock-down in those pen and inkwell days of 1951… back when you were required by law to publicly proclaim your desperate applications of intent from a pillory of shame: “May I go to the ‘basement’ please? It’s… a… #2.”

Back when the daydreamers, fidgeters, and other felons who hadn’t gotten their minds right yet knew the drill: hands out, palms up, and whack!… the slap of the ruler… I just cried most days—

Like that day, suddenly coming to in a bad Twilight-Zone episode: all the other seats empty…and the rest of the little robots standing obediently in Leighton’s lock-step assembly-line,

My absence there a flaming neon beacon as I, desperate and conspicuously A.W.O.L., was slithering from my assigned seat, and furtively tip-toeing unnoticed to the tail end of said line, breathing the reprieved man’s sigh of relief—

Only to discover (Jeezum Crow!!!) that every last man-Jack-&-Jill was clutching the very something I don’t have, that prescribed, regulation-size scrap of paper egregiously missing from my own little fist! And now… too late!!!

Targeted in the cross-hairs of Doom, the line inching forward, and me a little lumber log strapped to the Conveyor Belt of Death now, edging ever closer to the buzz-saw, to stand alone and vulnerable in Judgement before the all-seeing, all-powerful Gertrude Leighton, manning her own little Saint Peter’s Gate, wielding a tongue-depressor scepter-like, and doling out dollops of white flour paste from her 2 Gallon Mayonnaise JAR OF THE GODS!

She blinks her expressionless lizard blink, sizing me up, and crows prettily, “So Tommy? Not paying attention once again, eh, Well then!” And with the tongue depressor, trowels a big gob of clown-white paste onto my nose!

And dismisses me, sobbing in my shame and humiliation back to my seat with my new, sad-nosed clown face on.

True story. Sad. But true. And there is a final chapter to this one.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

EPILOGUE

“It ain’t over, till it’s over.” –Yogi Berra

Immediately after I’d headed off, all weepy and snot-nosed back toward my desk, Old Bag Leighton (which is how I remember her to this day) probably realized she’d crossed a line she really shouldn’t have crossed. Not on moral grounds, of course. Rather on What-will-his-parents-do-if-they-learn-of-this? grounds. On cover-your-wrinkled-old-butt grounds.

So she came up behind me with some tissues and dabbed the paste and snot from my nose, saying, “There, there ,Tommy,” and patting me on the back. But she didn’t come to apologize. Teachers apologizing to students was unheard of in those days.

But here’s where the story gets twisted. That afternoon when the final bell was sounding, she called me to her desk. Just that in itself scared the crap out of me.

“Tommy, I have a note I want you to give to your mother when you get home.”

Well, didn’t that just freeze me in my tracks right there! I didn’t want Mom to find out anything. I’d end up getting punished for being punished at school. I didn’t need that on top of the pasted nose humiliation trauma. No way!

She showed me the note. It was folded over in half so that I couldn’t see what she’d written. She tucked it unto one of my jacket pockets for me. “Don’t forget now,” she told me. And oh sure, didn’t the big bully-teacher sound all syrupy sweet and nice to me now, huh?

I left the classroom, scampered down the steps, and waited till I reached the sidewalk and was out of sight. Then I stopped and pulled the note from my jacket. As I said, it was folded in half, but it wasn’t taped or stapled shut or anything. So I mean, she must’ve known I was gonna open it and read it, right? So I did, I opened it.

But oh sure! Wouldn’t you know it! It was written in cursive! I couldn’t make heads or tails out of that code. So what to do?

I walked on slowly for a bit, feeling sick to my stomach. Thinking the only thing I could do was throw the note away. There was a ditch running right along beside the sidewalk, so that had to be it. My only hope. Throw it in the ditch. And I was lucky because a lot of the leaves had fallen off the trees. The ditch was filled with them. I was just afraid, though, that if I simply tossed it into the ditch, the wind might blow it right out back out onto the sidewalk. So I’d better bury it deep…

And that’s when I spied the big culvert running under one of my neighbors’ driveways. Thank you, God. I crawled half way into that leaf-filled culvert and buried the darn thing. Then I backed out, stood up, brushed the leaves off me, and went back to walking home.

And two houses down, there it was. Home. Waiting for me. And looking a whole lot more welcoming than it would have with that note in my pocket, I can tell you that!

A couple minutes later I was sitting comfortably at the kitchen table and guzzling a glass of milk, when the kitchen door swung open. And there was my big brother Dennis, also home from school. And what did he do? He opened his yap to make a public announcement. “Hey! Look what I saw Tommy hiding in the ditch up the sidewalk,” he crowed. And yup, there was THE NOTE crumpled in his hand!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I still have that note by the way. Mom kept it and, thinking I’d cherish it as cute in my later years, kept it in an album for me to enjoy. And I’m going to share it here, and then I’ll make my feelings clearly known.

“Some of the boys were asked to stay a few minutes in this room because of too much noise in the boy’s room. Tommy went out regardless and I asked him to stay a few minutes! Consequently tears. (I’m sorry too!!)”

My overall feeling is that the note is not cute. No. In fact my feeling is it’s a deceptive little, bald-faced, black lie, typical of some of the teacher-bullying running rampant in the 1950s primary schools. In this case, one perpetrated on a vulnerable little five year old and his parents.

And why do I say it’s a lie? Because… where in the note is there any reference to the Snowball of Paste I had to wear my on my nose during my perp-walk back to my desk? And the reference to “too much noise in the boys’ room (note the correct use of the apostrophe here, unlike “boy’s” in her note) is laughable! When did she ever patrol the boys’ room? Never. Because the boys’ room was too far down in the maze of The Basement for her fat ankles to waddle there, and because whenever we went to the boy’s room, she was always tickled pink to be rid of us.

So, ladies and gentlemen of the jury here I stand, swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And I’m testifying that I had only one, single problem that day with Gertude (what a fitting name!), and that the boys’ room was not involved in it in any way whatsoever. And allow me to add… the smug, creative, unmitigated, crocodile gall of her, to end her note to my mom with the sappy and syrupy salutation, “I’m sorry too!!”? Oh, that’s just too much. I mean, come on! Two exclamation marks even? Really?

I’m here to tell you that Just seeing the note here really galls me all over again.

I must remind myself: “The past is a bucket of ashes.” Carl Sandburg told me that.

Let it go, little Tommy.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

So in closing, suffice it to say that, yes, the public primary schools in the 1950s were pretty hard scrabble on little tykes like me. Gertrude was the worst, but there were others waiting in the wings for us as we’d graduate our way forward through junior high (“middle school”) and beyond.

Take 2^nd grade teacher Mrs. Goff who once “took me and shook me.” Why? Because when she warned me to stop “socializing during class” or she would “take me and shake me,” I unfortunately giggled. I swear I didn’t mean to, or even want to. But it just struck me as unexpectedly funny that she’d rhymed. I mean come on, there she was, glaring at me through her goggled Coke bottle glasses, and ridiculously warning me with what? A cute, frickin’ little poem for crying out loud. I just couldn’t help it!

However, the extra punishment I got for that misunderstanding didn’t strike me as funny at all. She gave me after school detention. And before it was over, she left me alone in the classroom, telling me I was not to leave until she released me. And then guess what… she just never came back. I was left all alone in that room for hours. If it hadn’t been for the custodian who came in to sweep the floor, I probably would’ve still been right there in my assigned seat the next day! True story.

Or take Miss Buck. She was always picking on this one kid, Jerry Clukey. She’d singled him out for whatever reason. Well, bullies don’ need no steenkin’ reasons, do they. It had gone on for a long time. What she’d do is harshly yank on a fistful of Jerry’s hair. And it was driving him crazy. Of course he didn’t feel he could safely tell his parents because, as was common then, the parents would likely think he was exaggerating and that it was happening because of some of his seriously bad behavior. So finally, he went home and practically shaved his head. And the day he returned to class, all she did is just smile an ominous, cold smile at him. But on the very next day, surprise! She’d brought in a pair of tweezers from home. Just for Jerry. True story.

Or take the infamous 3^rd grade teacher, Miss Wilson. When she’d catch you talking out of turn, you were made to stand at attention, military style, up front facing the class. Then she’d order you to stick your tongue out. It was pretty obvious how much she cherished your crying and choking after she’d unloaded a heaping spoonful of hot pepper powder on it and commanded, “Now swallow.” True story.

You want to know something sad? Well, I think it’s pretty darn sad that I had to wait until 5^th grade to finally get a warm, kind, and loving teacher. Miss O’Brien. A teacher who’d allegedly tried to make it as a nun but had failed at it. Very likely because her disposition was so sweet and too Christian. As far as looks go, she was, as people used to say, as homely as a mud fence, but she suffered all of us children gladly. She treasured us, took an interest in us, shared stories of her childhood with us, and made us so involved in our own educations that we all started succeeding.

Truth? I had a big crush on her. And got all A’s that year. Thanks to her, I finally and honestly began to feel I was gonna be alright. I’ll always remember her for reading us Stuart Little by E.B. White.

You know what? I like to imagine Miss O’Brien as basking in heaven. Also, I like to imagine Mrs. Leighton is burning in hell. (Ain’t I awful?) Sorry. But if I ever end up going to hell, Mrs. Leighton had better make herself scarce! I’ll be coming for her.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

So in closing, yeah, we certainly did have it rough at times, trekking our way through the Dover-Foxcroft primary and junior high school systems in the 1950’s. But here’s a thought. At least we didn’t have to go through the Catholic school systems! The Catholic school abuses were infamously much, much worse. Their war stories put ours to shame. Thank the heavens I wasn’t brought up a Catholic.

But if you were brought up Cathlolic… dude, I feel your pain.

But yeah, it always turns out there’s always someone a lot worse off than you.

So it goes…

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I, YOUNG CYRANO PART II

From the conclusion of Part I:

“Yes. A whirlwind romance. Lasted a couple of weeks. And then, poof! It was over. Done with. Gone with the wind.

Turned out I was kind of… boring, apparently.

But for me, it was plus yardage: I had had a girlfriend! It was kinda like me belonging to a new and exclusive club.

What would come next?”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Part II:

(just a little flashback tidbit)

Kind of… boring? Unlikely, but possible I suppose. But it did feel kinda like belonging to a new and exclusive club. My whole outlook and attitude had gotten a much-needed shot in the arm. Now I was a little more like…

So ME? Yeah. I’ve had girlfriends.

(I’d had that girlfriend.)

It felt like a major step in the ending of the sad little Charlie Brown chapter of my non-love-life. Like moving forward.

THE HERETOFORE IMMATURE AND ANNOYING LITTLE ME

I mean, like before Lynette, I was just another one of those immature and annoying lookitME! LookitME! little snakes-and-snails-and-puppy-dogs’-tails SHOW-offs, whenever some cute girl happened to be around.

For instance, up through third and fourth grades, I’d been Roy Rogers’ biggest fan. In fact my very first bedroom pin-up wall poster was Roy Rogers on his rearing palomino, Trigger.

I mean, I loved everything Roy Rogers. In fact, I wanted to BE Roy Rogers. So when I caught Roy doing some trick-riding on Trigger in one of his movies, I just had to emulate him.

Of course I didn’t have a horse. But I did have a bike named Trigger. So…

I lived up on Pleasant Street, a street that sloped gently downward past our house, meaning you could easily get a good down-hill coasting going on your bicycle. That slope became my training area. And the best trick-riding I ever saw in the Roy Rogers movies was him securing a firm, two-fisted grip on the saddle horn, while getting Trigger galloping at a very fast gallop. Then… wonder of all wonders…

Holding on tight and using that horn as a fixed fulcrum, Roy would launch himself right up out of the saddle, swing his hips and legs down to the left of Trigger’s flank, bounce his boots off the ground there, swing his entire body back up to sail right over the empty saddle only to drop himself down again (off to the right side this time), bounce his boots off the ground on that side, swing himself back up over the saddle once again, and then right back down to the left… and, you know, just repeat that flip-flop maneuver over and over a few more times, left and right, left and right before smoothly just dropping his holy little cowboy butt comfortably right back down in the saddle just like nothing had ever happened.

I know that’s all very hard to imagine, unless you’ve seen it done. But what might be even more difficult to picture is little-fourth-grade-moi coasting my bike at a good clip down over Pleasant Street’s little hill and performing that exact, same stunt! I mean it.

It took a month or more of practice. I had to begin first with the bike at a stand-still, me just holding onto the handlebars and practicing leaping back and forth over the bicycle’s seat. Once I got my balance down pretty pat, I began to up the ante by doing the same thing with the bike slowly moving. Then it was just a matter of increasing my speed day-by-day. And you know what? It became easy after a while. I got good at it. I swear I did.

And lo, Pleasant Street was suddenly blessed with its very own junior Roy Rogers Daily Wild West Show. I mean, damn, I was frickin’ rodeo-ready! (You remember how Tom Selleck was always saying, “This isn’t my first rodeo” on those idiotic Reverse Mortgage commercials? Well this was… my first rodeo, of sorts.)

So it wasn’t totally unusual for the occasional lucky Dover-Foxcroft pedestrian or automobile passenger to get to witness The Amazing One-Trick-Pony Cowpoke fearlessly barreling hell-bent-for-leather down Pleasant Street on any given day at any given time throughout summer vacation.

And I was so proud of myself. Not to mention magnanimously delighted to ever-so-generously perform this daily feat gratis (although I surely would’ve charged admission if I could have thought of a way to pull it off). But each and every time I was lucky enough to have an audience, I could console myself by just imagining all the exclamations of wonder going on inside the minds of those passers-by:

My God! Would you look at that kid! He’s not only BRAVE, he’s extremely SKILLED!

A kid like that? I mean, HE’S GOING PLACES, you know?

Well, all I can say is… you couldn’t PAY me to try something like that!

(And from all the sweet little back-seat daughters):

And he’s SO CUTE, too.

Heck, MY stupid boyfriend can’t do daring tricks like that!

I bet he’s got A ZILLION girlfriends, though!

(OK, yes, I admit it. I did seem to have a little of The-Christmas-Story’s ‘Ralphie’ in me back then.)

RALPHIE of The Christmas Story

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

So anyway— one late sunny morning, I was flying down the road for my third performance of the day. And just as I’d leapt off the seat to begin the ol’ left-to-right-to-left-to-right, a musical little voice off up ahead to my left cried out, “Wow! Look at you, Tommy!”

And of course I was going too fast to look at ‘myself,’ not that that would’ve made any sense, but I did look up and…

There she was! Betty-Jane Stanhope!

The very reason I’d been patiently sticking to Pleasant Street over the past week! So. She had finally, at long last, just happened outside while I was potentially enthralling the neighborhood. (I had such a crush on her.) (I mean, what boy didn’t?)

But as you will recall from a previous episode, I was pathologically shy around cute girls. Our eyes locked. And I froze. Which was when…

The handlebars suddenly strong-armed me, yanked me to the right! And WHOA! My rodeo-bronc-bicycle ka-thump-thumped! us over a shallow ditch, slamming my bum hard and pretty much sideways back down onto the seat! Somebody’s Then somebody’s driveway and lawn looked like they were flying beneath us like a rug being yanked out from under us! And Jeez, that damn maple tree trunk was coming at us like Casey Jones’ locomotive!

All that in a blink-and-a-half!

Oh. My. God!

Trigger tried to run itself right up the damn tree like a flag up a flagpole, I swear to God! The tree trunk’s roots were spread out at the base, curving out and down into the earth, providing a curved, though precarious, path for speeding wheels. So with a bone-jarring, ninety-degree change of direction, the bike went alley-oop-up! But not me.

Unfortunately, my body wasn’t built on wheels. I was a high-speed, arrow-straight vector!

Now, I swear there was a one-to-two-second, still-life Wile E. Coyote moment there… with my bike pasted to the trunk and aimed at the sky with me splayed-out-splat! like a June bug on a windshield!

Then after another blink-and-a-half, gravity deigned to peel the bike and I off the bark like a wet band-aid and dropped us in a heap onto the grass.

I mean, can you say “out-of-body experience?” Instantly transported to some Danté-esque alternate universe, I lay momentarily paralyzed and prostrated before the sadistic Pain Gods of the Gonads! Meanwhile I was being on-and-off flash-blinded in the pulsating strobes of the corpse-cold, crotch-to-brain aching!

I sorta came to fetal-positioned, sweating like a snowman in the desert, and struggling to roll myself over and crawl myself away from those torturous throes of…

“Are you alright?”

Ohmygod! There she was! Standing right over me! Staring straight down at me! At ME! What with my legs crossed bladder-tight and everything! Clutching my…

“Are you alright?”

“Unnngthhh?”

“I said, ‘Are you OK?’”

Me thinking, Oh please… just… go away! Don’t look at me! Go back inside your house! You shouldn’t be here right now. This is so… I’m so ASHAMED! I was longing to cry, but not in front of her!

I finished getting myself rolled over.

“Should I go get my mom…or… ?”

“What…?” I barely whispered, “No…no…”

“You sure?”

On my hands and knees now. Shaking. Still in a raspy whisper, “Positive.” And then, “Just… don’t!”

“Well… OK, I guess. But where are you hurt?”

Where am I…? Oh my God! Really? I couldn’t believe she just had to go and ask that! “My... knee,” I said, barely able to breathe, and wondering, Does she know? Does she know how it is with us boys? Hell, until that day, that moment, I didn’t even have a clue about just how bad the pain could really be (with, you know, ‘us boys.’) “Yeah. Think I… must’ve bruised it. My knee.”

The physical pain was so extreme, I worried about throwing up! But the embarrassment-‘pain’ was making me want to run away and hide my face. I mean, what had just happened was definitely not something you could just… explain… to a Betty-Jane Stanhope. The word, ‘unmentionable’ comes to mind. It was like… what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas, you know?

All I knew for sure was that I was going to spend the rest of my life hiding from Betty-Jane. I was a pariah, even though I hadn’t learned that word yet.

But OK, somehow I did manage to get up on my shaky legs, get my bike up on its shaky wheels, and begin the Long Limp of Infamy back to my house. Thinking to myself (as much as the severe pain could allow me to think coherently), Well, Gloria Cole knocked-me cock-eyed off a playground swing seat, and now I have to accept it that Betty-Jane probably knows something horribly unmentionable about me that she shouldn’t.

The prospect of ME ever finally getting to become some girl’s boyfriend seemed a grim impossibility.

By the way, the bike had fared much better than I had. At least there was that…

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

But hah! Just imagine, though, how surprised I’d have been if I could’ve looked into some Gypsy fortune teller’s crystal ball and caught just a glimpse of the lurid, two-weeks-long, hand-holding affair I was destined to enjoy in fifth grade with my first real girlfriend, Lynette Barnes, the following year!

Although feeling pretty down and out, I somehow knew that I wasn’t quite ready to throw in the towel just yet though…

Stay tuned to join me in I, Young Cyrano Part The Last

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home

“LOOKIN’ FOR THE OLD BLUE OX…”

You know who I envy in this life? Let me tell you. The Songwriters. And yes, I just capitalized the word Songwriters because I hold them in such high esteem. But at the same time, who I don’t envy so much are the so-called ‘songwriters’ (lower case ‘s‘). I’m talkin’ those ‘songwriters’ who are in it solely (and often soullessly) for the money and quick fame. See, I sorta need to feel the signature of the writers’ souls along with their unique talents in their offerings. Not that I can blame anybody for just wanting to earn a living. You know, live and let live. I just don’t find myself envying anybody who writes crap, even crap that sells big. That’s all.

Take the Beatles. The Beatles began as songwriters (small ‘s‘), not Songwriters. In my humble opinion. Oh, and I’m the first to admit, they became Songwriters Extraordinaire. “Eleanor Rigby.” “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” “A Day in the Life.” “Being for the Benefit of Mister Kite.” “In My Life.” Because hey, please know I grew to love the Beatles.

But what an overwhelming disappointment it was when the very the first song I heard by them in November of ’63 was “I Want to Hod Your Hand.” I mean, really, just how creative are these lyrics?

Oh yeah, I’ll tell you something,
I think you’ll understand,
Then I’ll say that something,
I wanna hold your hand,
I wanna hold your hand,
I wanna hold your hand.

Oh please say to me
You’ll let me be your man,
And please say to me,
You’ll let me hold your hand,
Now let me hold your hand,
I wanna hold your hand.

And when I touch you
I feel happy inside,
It’s such a feeling
That my love I can’t hide,
I can’t hide, I can’t hide.

Yeah, you got that something,
I think you’ll understand,
When I feel that something,
I wanna hold your hand,
I wanna hold your hand,
I wanna hold your hand.

And when I touch you
I feel happy inside,
It’s such a feeling
That my love I can’t hide,
I can’t hide, I can’t hide.

Yeah, you got that something,
I think you’ll understand,
When I feel that something,
I wanna hold your hand,
I wanna hold your hand,
I wanna hold your hand.

“Nuff said.

In my life, (now there’s a real Beatles’ song) I’ve tried my hand at poetry. I was inspired by the so many poets and poems I’d fallen in love with. But, to become a poet, you pretty much have to start out at the bottom, don’t you.

So I was clerking at the local library, when this sweet little old lady began pestering me every other week to join her poetry writers group. And yeah, sure, I’d been struggling with… ‘my poetry’ for a long while, but only privately. I had no self-confidence. I had never shared any of it. The thought of sharing felt… risky.

But one day I just threw in the towel, gave in to her persistence, and said “OK, OK OK!” I showed up with a very humble poem. But a safe (for me) poem. And by safe, I mean I felt it was a somewhat fairly clever little thing I’d concocted… but mostly because it rhymed. Because I just for some reason assumed that all these oldsters would exclusively be into the rhyming poems. OK me, I’d moved pretty much exclusively into free verse by then, but… I mean,hey, I didn’t know who the hell these old buzzards were, circled around the library table like a séance. And I definitely didn’t want to risk having one I really cared about getting shot down.

And then, finally: it was my turn to read. So OK, I cleared my throat three or four times; took, and held, the required deep breath; and then nervously proceded headlong to read what I’d brought.

When done, I looked up. Everyone was silently looking at me, and some were nodding, which made me sigh in relief. But then that little old poetry mistress who ran the group locked onto me with her suddenly mischievous, beady little eyes and said, “Why, that’s… doggerel,” followed by “and doggerel is poetry written by dogs!“

To my chagrin and terror, everybody burst out laughing!

Turned out, this lady had pulled the same stunt on everybody who ever joined the group. It was sort of a first-day initiation of hers. And (who woulda thunk it?) after a little period of adjustment, it turned out that this lady and I were destined to become a great lifelong friends. I even dedicated my first full-length memoir to Anne Kucera.

But she was right, wasn’t she. So much so-called ‘poetry’ really is doggerel. And if I had known this poetry-written-by-dogs expression back in 1963, that’s exactly how I would’ve assessed the Beatles’ “I Wanna Hold Your Hand.” And yes, sure, I got it that that particular little ditty sounded pretty lively and all, and I noted that sure, all the girls were doing the Elvis thing, screaming and fainting, so they were definitely a phenom, but… I mean, just look at those pathetic lyrics. I’m sorry, but the Beatles began as doggerel songwriters (lower case s). Case closed.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Now… here we go. And OK… I admit it. I’m still on my juke box kick. So here comes a song. Hey, I can’t help it. I’m really just very passionate about the special singer/songwriter music I’ve meticulously collected over my lifetime because… well, because of the effects that music has had, and still has, on me. So I’m not going to apologize for wanting, actually needing, to share some of the best of it.

And right now, please trust me– I have a songwriter, and a song of his, in mind that I want to share with you, hoping you’ll be willing to give it a shot. But first, allow me to refer you back to the song, “Christmas in the Trenches,” featured in one of my recent posts titled “A Single Song for All Humanity.” The lyrics of that song tell of something big and important, something unusual and truthful and heartfelt… something well worth experiencing. Which is what I look for in the music I collect. And I’d be willing to bet real money that those of you who did listen to “Christmas in the Trenches” were also pretty powerfully moved. As I was. Because lyrics like those in that piece are a humane and generous gift… to you, to all of us, from a real bona fide (capital ‘S‘) Songwriter. A rare gift.

However, today’s gift isn’t about some big and important 3-day event that has established its place in the annals of world history. Rather it’s about a seemingly small five-minute encounter. And it’s not really about the encounter per se as much as it is about what this little, universal encounter reveals.

Today’s gift is a unique, poignant piece, composed by one of the more talented singer/songwriters catalogued in my vast juke box: the international singer/songwriter David Mallett from Sebec, Maine. Dave’s compositions have been recorded by a number of famous recording artists from John Denver, Kathy Mattea, Emmylou Harris, to Arlo Guthrie. You’ll likely know him from his signature song, “The Garden Song,” (a.k.a. “Inch by Inch”) popularized and sung (in a number of languages) throughout the world.

But he’s composed so many other long-time perrenial favorites as well, such as “Fire,” commemorating the Mallett family’s long ago loss of their homestead in a calamitous conflagration; and then of course “The Ballad of the Saint Anne’s Reel,” which has been happily adopted as the official folk anthem of Prince Edward Island and the surrounding Maritimes provinces of Canada.

Famous American singer/songwriter David Mallett

Now, I gotta admit this one comes with a title that’s a little bit unexpected, one that might raise the eyebrows of someone scanning the playlist of songs on Dave’s The Artist in Me CD for the first time. It’s titled “The Old Blue Ox.” However (much needed spoiler alert here) the title is definitely not referencing the famous, fictional tall tale of Paul Bunyan and Babe, the Big Blue Ox, which is more than likely the only “blue ox” most Americans would be familiar with. And like me, you may never have realized that there really is such a thing as a ‘blue ox.’ I mean, I had to look it up for myself: “Blue Ox: a blue brindle cow or ox which is usually the result of a roan Shorthorn which is bred to a black and white Holstein.”

OK. Yeah. I mean, Who knew?

Well, the apparent answer to that is… farmers (and alas, no farmer, me). But yes, farmers are very likely to know of this breed.

OK: time to relax. So breathe… and now lean back to get comfy in your chair and try to imagine you’ve just been puttering about your house for the afternoon, a house situated in a rural part of Maine’s farmlands, when suddenly there comes a knock at your door. You open it to find… on your doorstep… one sad, confused, little old gentleman leaning on his cane…

"THE OLD BLUE OX"

"Good afternoon, I'm lookin' for
the old blue ox," he said,

And he said, "I don't believe it,
but I heard my father's dead.

And just where is the Curtis place?
My God how things have changed!"

He was a little ol' man, he was almost blind,
and he was walkin' with a cane.
 
"Now I know this is the place,
because I climbed the Severance Hill,

I'd know that hill in a hundred years,
and how her rule and will."

"Earl Parkman moved away," I said, 
"Will Green, he died you know,

And Willis Pratt has grown a man,
and gone on years ago."
 
Now our conversation was quite short,
five minutes at the most,

But he stood before me like a boy,
and conjured up the ghosts

Of friends and kin folk from an older,
and a slower time,

How fifty years, disappeared 
like minutes in his mind.
 
"The blue ox was gone the day I left,
been gone a week or so,

And I've come around to fetch him home,
cause I always did you know.

Pa will be glad." He started off,
and I stood and watched him go,

Down the way to yesterday 
lookin' hard and lookin' slow.
 
Now apple trees just wither,
and barns grow old and fall,

And ancient lady's sit in rockin'
chairs, wrapped in their shawls.

But this old fella does the things,
the things he has to do,

He's lookin' for his past,
he might stop and talk to you.

"Good afternoon, I'm lookin' for
the old blue ox," he said,

He said, "I don't believe it,
but I heard my father's dead.

And just where is the Curtis place?
My God how things have changed."

He was a little ol' man he was almost blind
and he was walkin' with a cane.

What this song does is deliver a bittersweet little punch to my heart, leaving me with a warm and kind of teary-eyed smile every time I listen to it. So no, it’s not exactly a happy song, although the vocals and the jaunty instrumental accompaniment combine to nearly disguise it as such. But yeah… I really love this one.

I love the artful way it’s written. Because in no more than a handful of lyrics, it hands us such an easy-to-grasp foreshadowing of a reality that very likely awaits us, but one we seldom consciously imagine will ever touch us: that some time in the near or far future, maybe right in the middle of us just happily going about our lives, with everything moving pretty much right along all hunky-dory… it’ll eventually come. Very much like a sudden and unexpected knock at the door:

Somebody we know and probably care about, and maybe even love and depend on, will have just been diagnosed with the reality of dementia. Because shit happens…

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Our extended family has owned a lake-front cottage since the 1940’s, the ownership of which has been passed down within the family from generation to generation. One sunny, blue-sky, summer afternoon back fifteen years or so, a number of us were lounging out on the cottage’s porch that overlooks the lake. And all of a sudden my mom said something that didn’t seem very logical at all. “What a beautiful lake this is. It must have a name. So, what’s the name of this lake?”

Suddenly that had us all sitting up a little straighter in our chairs. And after a short pause, someone said the obvious. “Why… Sebec Lake, of course. You know that, Violet. Sebec Lake.”

My mom thought about that and then simply said, “Oh.” But then, after a lengthy pause, she spoke again. “And this is such a nice camp.”

“Yes. It is,” we all agreed.

“So… whose camp is this? Who owns it?”

That question brought a much longer and more uncomfortable silence to the porch gathering, as we all looked to one another in… well, astonishment. Then Dad, flummoxed and nervous, looked her right in the eye and said sternly, “Why, you do, Violet. This is your camp. You own it!”

“What… me?” she laughed in disbelief. “Me? I own it…? Oh no, I don’t think so. How could that be?”

And that was that. Our ‘knock at the door.’ And it was unnerving. Frightful. Oh I mean, sure, looking back, there’d been signs. Of course there had. Road bumps had been coming up in conversations quite a lot with her actually, which we’d find frustrating, but... still… we’d just pooh-pooh them into the background, log them under the category of ‘just natural aging,’ just a little forgetfulness here and there which can be expected.

But… that was our knock at the door. The end of any more hopeful denial.

It took years for her dementia to play out in our lives. Years to go from that first cottage-porch incident to the point of her often confusing our dad, her husband, with her long-dead father. To the point of her packing up her little suitcase at home most nights, parking it right by the front door, and continually asking us when was somebody, anybody, ever going to get around to taking her home, to ‘her house’ so she could go to bed? But once in a while there’d be little periods of time when the old, real Violet would just pop right back in among us. Of course this was all devastating, long past the time we finally had to move her into the local nursing home and right up until the day passed.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Now I swear I certainly did not decide to write about this topic to depress anybody, and I sincerely hope I haven’t done that. It’s simply that I treasure my collection of unique and creative singer/songwriter recordings so much that I’m kinda driven to share them, because to me they’ve always been such an important lifeline to my inner peace, comfort, sanity, and even knowledge. Because my God, they cover just about all genres. Humor and comedy. Tragedy. Romance. Novelty. Philosophy. Nostalgia. Politics. Protest. Spoken word. History. You name it. And I can’t help feeling that the experience of them is just way too valuable a commodity for me alone to greedily keep, them just languishing here on the dusty CD shelves in my little apartment and in my PC’s digital ‘jukebox vaults.’ They need to be shared. And I feel a real need to put them out there for you, too, to discover.

Yeah. I know. How very Don Quixote of me, right?

But I find the talent and craft of these songwriters irresistable. I mean, just take another look at this one, “The Old Blue Ox.” Look at the dialogue between the little old man and the narrator:

“Now our conversation was quite short,
five minutes at the most,
But he stood before me like a boy,
and conjured up the ghosts
Of friends and kin folk from an older,
and a slower time,
How fifty years, disappeared
like minutes in his mind.”

Yes, clinically it’s just one man conversing with some unfortunate old fella locked in the grip of his dementia, but the tiny encounter is painted within these lyrics with an almost paranormal feel about it. Like one of them is a ghost… or… like they’re both two time-travelers, each ensconsed in his own time-period-‘reality,’ but somehow briefly communicating with one another straight through a… wormhole maybe that has suddenly pierced the nexus of their two worlds?

How spooky is that! And how intriguing…

But that’s what it was like sometimes, talking to my mom. I soon came to understand very well that she was speaking to me from a long-dead world of sepia-toned, black-and-white photographs and the living ghosts of her brothers and sister. And I was speaking to her from a magical science-ficton world of cell phones, iPads, and remote controls lying around all over the living room furniture. How amazing.

But hey, I’m guess beginning to sound like the cursed old seafarer in “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” aren’t I. (Can’t shut up.) So let me just sum up with a single statement regarding not only all of the (in my opinion) crème de la crème lyricists I keep in my collection, but especially this particular Dave Mallett’s song, “The Old Blue Ox”:

This song transcends the simple term ‘song’; what it is, actually, is a slice of pure Literature suitable for inclusion in any American literary anthology.

So that’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

And now I’ll end with some scribbling I penned years ago, having been inspired by “The Old Blue Ox.” Thanks for reading.

“Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”

You took it for granted…

just assumed Memory Lane

would forever remain

your Yellow Brick Road…

overlooking, way back then,

those sleepy seeds borne

on the winds of time

sewing themselves

between the cobblestones, and then

all those little spearheads–

the crabgrass, unsheathing itself

underfoot… choking the undergrowth of

Memory Lane in an overgrowth primeval–

and now you’ve gone missing in the outback

of your own hardening cerebral arteries…

all your Hansel and Gretel breadcrumbs

disappearing like hourglass-sand

down the little rabbit holes,

leaving you needing a damn macheté

to hack your way in circles

through the foliage of

your own life’s back pages…

unable to find the forest

hiding in your trees

home

THE ONE GAZING BACK AT YOU (From Your Mirror)

I was 16 years old when Rod Serling knocked me out with a Twilight Zone episode titled “In His Image.” That was way back in 1963.

For any younger readers out there (though it’s doubtful I even have any of those), I imagine 1963 probably would sound like The Dark Ages. A world where the phone booths down the street were the closest thing to your nonexistent cell phones you could ever find. A world where there was no such thing as dialing 9-1-1. A world where cars didn’t have seat belts and the automatic shift transmission in cars would’ve been a wondrous and rare thing to behold. Where gangly aluminum TV antennae roosted atop the roof of every single house in town. And a world wherein they were still showing a lot of movies and TV shows in black and white. In fact, “In His Image” was aired in black and white.

Anyway, I’m dying to re-tell you about that episode, so let’s begin with the plot.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Main character, Alan, enters a New York City subway station very late at night. Oddly, the only other person there is an old woman, a religious fanatic, who feverishly presses one of her pamphlets into his hands. But Alan is suddenly being overwhelmed by excruciatingly loud electronic tones ringing in his head, and irrationally he believes this woman is responsible. He pleads with her to stop it, to get away from him, and leave him the hell alone!

And of course utterly confused and frozen in fear by his violent in-your-face reaction, she just stands there like a deer in the headlights gaping at him. Exasperated in psychotic desperation, he impulsively shoves her down and away! Unfortunately onto the tracks and into the path of a speeding subway train.

An hour later, and amazingly with no memory of the incident whatsoever, he calmly arrives at the apartment of Jessica, his fiancée—whom he’s known for only four days, mind you… (Say what?!?)

Together, they start the long drive back to Alan’s hometown. And during the drive Alan, exhausted, dozes off. In his fitful sleep, he begins muttering something about “WALTER.” When awakened, Jessica asks him, “Who is this ‘Walter’?”

He responds with, “What do you mean? I don’t know anyone of that name.”

Long story short: they arrive, and Alan is met by a number of discomforting surprises: (1) There are buildings he’s never seen before in town, buildings which apparently must have been erected in the single week he’s been gone; (2) His key no longer fits the lock on his Aunt Mildred’s front door, as it should; (3) The stranger who answers the door claims he’s never heard of any Mildred; (4) The university he works at is now nothing but an empty field; (5) It turns out that people he remembers seeing and talking to only a week before have been dead for years; and last but not least, (6) In the local graveyard, he discovers his parents’ gravestones are gone and have been replaced by those of some Walter Ryder and his wife.

Jessica doesn’t know what to make of this! Of course she’s disturbed, but … she loves Alan. She figures there must be some rational explanation, right?

While driving back to New York, however, Alan once again begins hearing the tones in his head , only much worse this time! Suddenly filled with a murderous rage, he orders Jessica to stop! She does! Then leaps from the car, and commands her to drive on. OK. She doesn’t have to be asked twice! Off she goes! But omigod! In the rearview mirror she spies him running behind her car, and brandishing a large rock.

Suddenly another car rounds the bend, striking Alan! However, he luckily survives the impact but is left with a large open-gash injury to his arm. Although there is no pain, when he looks down into the torn and gaping wound in his wrist… there is also no blood or bone!

Instead… only twinkling lights amid a confusing tangle of multi-colored wires and transistors below his skin! Alan freaks!

Quickly he covers his gaping wound with a cloth. Then hitches a ride back to his New York apartment where, poring over a phonebook, he manages to find a listing for a Walter Ryder, Jr. Aha! So he hails a cab, goes to the listed address, disconcertingly discovers that his key does fit this door, and warily steps inside. And abruptly comes face to face with his exact double!

A very shy and lonely man named Walter Ryder, Jr.!

OK, you can surely anticipate the frenetic conversation that must follow here: the desperate questions Alan will have to demand answers to…

Here are a few intriguing lines of dialogue from the tail-end of Mr. Serling’s script:

Alan: Well… What do you mean? Who am I then?

Walter: You’re… nobody.

Alan: No! Stop it, Walter! That’s not true!

Walter: Well, Alan, answer me this, then: who is this watch I’m wearing, hmmm? And who is the refrigerator in the kitchen? Don’t you understand?

Alan: No. No. No! I do not understand!

Walter: Well…you’re a machine, Alan. A mechanical device.

Alan: What?! I don’t believe that! I can’t!

Walter: And I can’t blame you, Alan. I wouldn’t believe it either. But it’s the truth. The fact is, you were born a long time ago. In my head.

Alan: What?!

Walter: Now, all kids have dreams, don’t they? Well, you were mine. You know. The others thought about… joining the army or flying to Mars, but they finally grew up and forgot their dreams. I didn’t. I thought about one thing only and longed for one thing always. Just one. A perfect artificial man. Not a robot. A duplicate of a human being. Well, it seemed harmless, not even very imaginative for a child. But then you see, I became an adult. Only somewhere along the way—like most geniuses— I forgot to grow up. I kept my dream. And I created you, Alan. Is that straight enough for you?

Believe you me, that was one fun and entertaining episode back then in those days. But for me, it didn’t stop at fun and entertaining. That little drama saw me kissing my 1960’s Ozzie-and-Harriet Show worldview goodbye in the rearview. The Twilight Zone had become catnip for my imagination.

After which I began gradually re-taking an inventory of this… reflection, this ‘individual’ staring back at me from the bathroom mirror. Going over and over in my head what I’d learned about anatomy in Health class and electronics in high school General Science. No, no, no, I didn’t think for a moment that I believed I was… you know, a robot or anything like that. No, of course not…

Of course I suppose if you really were a robot, you probably wouldn’t know…

But at the same time, wasn’t that kid in the mirror a fella…

֍who is “electronically” wired-up inside— all axons and dendrites, synapses, mini-volts and amps?

֍whose hard-shell skull acts as the protective housing for the soft-tissue computer-thingy that’s basically running the whole show?

֍whose heart is actually kind of an electronic blood and oxygen pump?

֍whose nose and mouth can be seen as ‘vents’ for oxygen and fuel intake?

֍whose pie-hole is pretty much a “food/fuel” processor, a Cuisinart blender with its grinding, tearing, crushing teeth?

֍whose sensorial eyes, nose, tongue, fingers, and ears electronically send their five-senses reports to the brain?

֍whose four bio-mechanical limbs provide for (a) mobility and (b) reach for procuring “fuel?”

֍whose four fingers and opposable thumb at the ends of each of the two upper limbs serve to retrieve the necessary operational “fuel” and transfer said “fuel” into the pie-hole?

֍whose stomach is a virtual chemistry-set fuel tank that breaks down and refines the “fuel?”

֍whose liquid waste byproduct is syphoned off and away by a run-off hose assembly?

֍whose intestines massage the byproduct gases and spent fuel rods toward and out of an exhaust vent?

֍who comes with spare parts: the extra brain hemisphere, eye, lung, kidney, arm, leg, ovary and/or testicle?

֍and who, like most machines, comes with a limited warranty?

Yeah. You know. Just sayin’. Is all.

But… something else too. You know, every once in a while, some little thing or other happens to me that takes me back to those comparisons. For instance, one thing that’s been bugging me off and on ever since I was a kid is that maybe twice or so a year, I suddenly become aware of a brief, mysterious, nearly subliminal tone. I could be reading, say, or bicycling, or be in the middle of a conversation when all of a sudden, there it goes. Right out of the blue, hmmmmmm…

Sometimes in my left ear, sometimes my right, but never both at once. And it only lasts thirty seconds at the most before fading out. Damned if I have any idea what causes that, but I can tell you what it reminds me of. In primary and junior high school, an audiologist would visit for our annual hearing tests for, you know, our health records. He’d place a big, black, heavy set of headphones over our little ears and play us tones that would range all over the map from easily audible to almost inaudible to not audible at all. That’s what this phenomenon sounds like! Either that or a muffled, low-volume TV test-pattern hum from the 50’s.

It still happens to this day, but I’ve grown accustomed to it by now, and usually just joke about it to myself— Just the old brain uploading its periodical software update from the aliens. Or…who knows… maybe I really am a freakin’ robot…

Llike Alan.

Eeek!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

OK. Here’s a little something I scribbled back around 2005. After I’d just barely turned sixty.

I, ROBOT

I sing the body electric… state-of-the-art

luxury sports utility vehicle of the species

Nothing like me ever was. Built to

last, to take a licking and keep on

ticking…

Modeled after the redundancy principle—

extra kidney, lung, eye, hand, foot, brain hemisphere—

the five senses hardwired into software-bundled hardware,

and connected in spaghetti-tangles of fiber-optic nerves

to the mother of all motherboards!

My each and every cell vacuum-packed with its own

copy of the spiro-encrypted, double-helixed,

micro-schematic blueprint. Each digit stamped

with its own encrypted, model-identifying, swirl-pattern ‘scan code’

O I am the quintessential, self-replicating, self-healing,

self-cleaning, psycho-medical, chemico-robotic

Circuit City wonder— drop me on an alien

planet and watch me replicate myself,

invent the wheel, steal fire from the Titans, change the water into

wine, and… when there’s enough

typewriters, and enough

time… I will compose

Hamlet

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Hmmm. Yeah. Robots. And Artificial Intelligence (A.I.).

Ever since before the 1950’s, the subject of robotics has been burrowing its technological head like a worm into the global consciousness. Sci-fi movies and TV shows. Automated machinery taking human workers’ factory jobs. And decade after decade, ever more state-of-the-art robotic and A.I. toys and novelties piling up under our Christmas trees. Rock’em Sock’em boxing robots. Children’s cute little robot “pets.” Roomba robo-vac vacuum cleaners. Digital chess player software that can check-mate any of you John Henry wannabe chess-masters out there, unless you formerly ask it to give you a sporting chance. And of course those nondescript little devices we plug into our living room wall sockets which, with the Open Sesame cry of Hey Google! are standing ready to do our bidding , anything and everything from controlling our thermostats to playing us a Tom Waits tune upon demand like some damn jukebox.

“So, put another nickel in

In the nickelodeon

All I want is lovin’ you

And music, music, music”

On news network broadcasts, we’ve long marveled at bomb squad robots approaching suspicious “packages” left on sidewalks; we’ve watched documentaries extolling the never-ending progress of anything from the newest, most improved, and more-lifelike-ever sex doll “bots” to cyber-soldier warfare robots for combat. I’ve watched the testing of frightening stainless-titanium “dogs” right out of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, and those teeny, tiny, CIA flying robot “mosquitoes” with spy-cams. Driverless cars (and even driverless 22-wheelers now) tooling down our open highways, constantly taking digital correspondence-school drivers’-ed classes as they roll. And meanwhile, all of us continue to be plagued every day and all day by ad-agencies’ A.I.s phoning and texting us, goading us into finally surrendering to that unwanted new car warranty.

And talk about a brave new world, today living among us is a large, ever-growing population of cyborgs (cyborgs being organisms that have restored function or enhanced abilities due to the addition of some artificial component or technology).

So, me? I’m a cyborg by definition. Because I’m looking at the world through artificial lenses and listening to my Tom Waits collection through hearing aids. Now, today, many totally deaf people today can actually hear, thanks to cochlear ear implants. We’ve come such a long way since the Helen Keller days. And literally millions of people around the globe are not only walking about on stainless steel knee and hip replacements, but are also using robotic hands and feet with natural flexing fingers and toes. And artificial hearts! Plus wonder of all wonders, today if you want we have robotic organic 3-D “printers” that will ‘print’ you up a brand-new, fully-functioning liver for your next transplant! To us in our seventies, it’s feels like the future has already fallen behind us into the past.

So hey, what do I know about all this? Not much. Not technically. But like most baby boomers, I‘ve grown up on a long, steady diet of science fiction movies. And these days, you can actually learn a lot about robotics and A.I. from cinema. In the old days, not so much.

Sci-fi thrillers in the ‘50’ were so off-the-wall bad, they were known by the derogatory term, schlock. But we didn’t know that then. And as a kid I tried to watch every one of those that came to town at the local theater. Too many of those actually, and way way before I was old enough not to be traumatized. As a result of my helpless obsession, I ended up suffering from an acute case of juvenile robot-phobia.

For instance Gog (That’s G-O-G, Gog). Gog came out in 1954 when I was only eight and scared the living bejesus out of me! The movie is set in a top-secret underground military research facility where scientists are experimenting with cryogenics as a method of slowing down astronauts’ metabolism for space travel hibernation. The entire base is coordinated by a single supercomputer, NOVAC, and its two robot minions, Gog and Magog. And therein lies the problem.

An invisible ufo hovering above the installation has gained remote control over Gog. And since the E.T.s on board are dead-set against allowing earthlings to go rocketing hither and thither through their space, an onset of mysterious and ‘unexplainable’ deadly mishaps have been happening. Like this one:

When one absent-minded scientist haplessly returns, after hours, to the soundproofed cryogenic lab to retrieve something he’s left there, in horror we watch the pressurized door automatically closing slowly behind him… like a Venus Fly-trap! Of course it takes a fumbling moment or three for him to catch on to the fact that he’s been… sealed in, but by then it’s too late.

We watch the thermostat dial on the control panel in the empty observation room outside nefariously turning counter-clockwise, ultimately plunging the room temperature downward toward the ultimate freezing point (−346 °F). And he panics of course (as did we eight year olds in the audience, having already noticed the deadly white frost crawling relentlessly down the liquid nitrogen pipes)! Sure, he bangs his fists, and even a hammer against the plate-glass lab window. And of course, he cries for help, but… by then it’s too late in the afternoon as all of his co-workers are home. And by now, ice crystals have begun icing his eyebrows and moustache. The gruesome process takes about three on-screen minutes, after which our man in the white lab coat, now a greyish-blue “corpsicle,” topples like a felled tree trunk.

Yeah. Think about it. Me, eight years old.

Gog was my first robot. And I prayed it would be my last.

My second was Robbie, “Robbie the Robot.” He (or it) crept into my consciousness as part of the cast of the 1956 film, Forbidden Planet. Ten years old this time, but still spooked by the thought of the dangerous Metal Men. To me Robbie looked like a mechanical, ink-black Michelin Man, and more than just a tad too stranger-danger for preadolescent me.

Despite the discomfort Robbie engendered in me, however, the concept (primitive as it was back then) of what someday would be known as artificial intelligence was intriguing. Anyway, at least Robbie wasn’t anywhere near as terrifying as Gog though, and by ten I pretty much knew what everybody knew in those days: in reality, robots were never ever going to amount to anything more dangerous than that clunky old Wizard of Oz Tin Man.

Robbie the Robot

Still though. You never… really knew, did you.

My third (and, nostalgically speaking, my forever favorite of all time) was the one simply and unimaginatively known as “Robot,” or “the Robot.” He (well, it spoke with a man’s voice) was one of the main characters in the ensemble cast of the Lost in Space series, which aired from 1965 through ‘68.

“Robot” functioned both as the bodyguard for the crew and the on-board technician most responsible for completing the mission of finding the crew’s way back to earth. Although endowed with superhuman strength and futuristic weaponry, he also exhibited such comfortably human trappings as laughter, singing, an occasional sadness, and an entertainingly snide sarcasm that often bordered on mockery.

But most endearing of all was the manner with which “Robot” went about executing his third assignment, being the protective “nanny” for Will, the youngest member of the crew.

His frenetic “Danger, Will Robinson!” accompanied by his flailing arms, still remains a familiar iconic echo in today’s pop culture.

And if Will Robinson loved him, then he was OK in my book.

But it was those outwardly human characteristics that gave me my first real inkling of what a creative artificial intelligence might, or could, actually look like… or be like someday, in the impossibly faraway future.

And finally, I must give a tip of my hat to all the robots featured in Isaac Asimov’s 1950 collection of short stories titled I, Robot, which I discovered later as a young adult. What a read, what a hoot that book was, and perhaps still is. As it was for me with Lost in Space, Asimov’s not-taking-himself-or-his-premises-too-seriously was such a delight.

Plus, as the budding sci-fi aficionado I was becoming by then, I was fascinated by the three, fail-safe, Universal Laws of Robotics Asimov came up with.

֍First Law: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

֍Second Law: A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law

֍Third Law: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws

My opinion? All artificial intelligences in real life should only be allowed to be created with these safety protocols required. Of course, we all know that’s never going to happen, don’t we, since we can never trust our scientists and technicians to actually have the common-sense-wherewithal to do that. If we could, then such a fate as The Terminator’s “Rise of the Machines” could be completely avoided.

What? Don’t think something like “The Rise of the Machines” is a realistic possibility? Wow. And Mom nicknamed me “The Doubting Thomas.”

Ever hear of Stephen Hawking, probably the most respected and eminent physicist the world has known this side of Einstein? Well, guess what: after he died, he left us with the following dire warning: “The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race. Efforts to create thinking machines pose a threat to our very existence. It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever increasing rate. Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete and would be superseded.”

I take his warning to heart. Not just because of his reputation as a genius in physics, but because I see our human race as a hollow species of sheep who’ll complacently allow the biggest, greediest, most unthinking monsters-in-charge to run, and ruin, everything. I mean, hey, if there’s quick money to be made by allowing an army of sentient, self-replicating machines free-reign, then… Jesus H, it’s time we go looking for a Sarah Conner.

But hey, listen, I’m no Paul Revere here. No, what’s on my mind has much more to do with the idea of our own inner (I’m gonna call it) ‘programming.’Our inner biological programming (think gut feelings) that’s always on the alert for threats to our personal danger.

Like this scenario: OK, I just know the ice on this pond is probably way to too thin to be safe. You know what? I’m taking my skates and going home. Or Jeez, this one:. This too-overly-friendly dude is creeping me out. I know it may sound crazy, but I’m kinda getting the vibe he could be a serial killer or something. Gonna end this conversation now. I’m so outta here!

Alright, here’s a personal example. From me:

Another weird little phenomenon has gotten my attention off and on ever since I was a kid. It happens whenever I’ve somehow managed to find myself perched up on some extremely high place, somebody’s roof, say, a really tall ladder or, God forbid, the edge of a steep cliff. Especially when, against my better judgement, I can’t help myself from looking down! Because that’s when something very peculiar always happens. Sure, there’s the terror, pure and simple. Hair standing up on the back of my neck. Muscles freezing up in a full-body lockjaw as I imagine myself in an arm-pin-wheeling freefall with the ground rushing up at me at E=MC². And vertigo? Of course, every time.

But there is something else, a very peculiar “something else” going on a little embarrassingly… (Man, I can’t believe I’m actually going to try to describe this thing.) Oh, let’s just say that… down below…down there… down there in my…you know, “nether region?” Alright: my groin. OK, OK! My gonads. Whenever I’m teetering on a high perch of any kind, I always get this uncomfortable and urgent sensation, a physical feeling. Think…pressure. A buzzing pressure. Down there. A slightly nauseating, invisible-hand squeeze of the scrotum that’s got a subliminal, joyless, joy-buzzer buzz to it that dizzies me, leaving me weak the knees.

Yup. That’s my old nads haranguing me with THE ALARM! They don’t speak English, so of course they communicate in biological “language.” I’ve experienced it often enough over the years, that I can easily translate it for you. Here it is:

“Danger! Danger, Will Robinson! Stop lookin’ down, fool! Whattaya think you’re doin’? Back up right NOW! Get us off this diving board! Get us off the edge of this cliff!

Listen! The two of us? Down here? OK, we got this one job, see? It’s called PROCREATION PROTECTION, alright? It’s called tryin’ to save your sorry-ass species from extinction, is all!

What, you never heard of a little somethin’ called “The Darwin Awards?”

Yeah. My nads can be very sarcastic…

And what’s that but the “voice” of ‘programming‘ talking? All living things are ‘programmed’ like this for the survival of the individual so that the survival of future generations of the species can be guaranteed. My gonads are obviously wired up and always on the ready to trigger that extreme, automatic, Darwinian fear of falling… the same way a common house cat’s programmed to be terrified of cucumbers.

Oh, what, didn’t know about cukes and cats? Well… apparently cats have a vestigial fear of snakes, whose rather cylindrical bodies are similar, in a way, to cucumbers. I’m no expert, but it’s apparently due to an embedded leftover memory burned into their DNA from generations long ago, back when snakes preyed upon their ancestors in the jungle. However, what I am an expert on is YouTube videos, so I can expertly advise you that, for a good time, go straight to YouTube and key in “cucumber and cat.” Then sit back and marvel at dozens of videos featuring prankster cat owners sneaking a cucumber onto the floor directly behind their cute little fur balls. You won’t believe the acrobatic conniption-fit responses.

(OK, actually I’ve put a great link for this down at the end of this post. So when you get there, go ahead. Knock yourself out.)

But furthermore, my nads’ Fear-of-Falling programming also includes the additional strategy of flooding my brain with a rush of irrational delusions. Like… ok, gravity isn’t satisfied with just sucking me down, no, but like some Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea giant squid, I’m become positive it’s roped its invisible tentacles around my ankles and has begun tractor-hauling me forward as well as downward! Yes, gravity tugging me horizontally! I’m sure of it!

Gravity (with a capital G) is Evil Incarnate. It just can’t wait to reward me with a Darwin Award toe-tag. And yeah, I can get how crazy that sounds, but…

Gravity is not our friend, boys and girls.

But OK. Back to my thesis here, my big message: Instinct Equals Biological Programming.

Instincts are the products of our digital cerebral clockworks, controlling all living things’ behaviors. The ones and zeroes behind bears hibernating. The ones and zeros behind new-born ducklings “imprinting” on the first biological entity they encounter. The ones and zeros behind Killdeer just knowing to lead predators away from its nesting eggs with its comically-feigned, broken-winged limping. Or the cicada nymphs knowing to climb down that tree trunk to burrow into the earth and suck the liquids of plant roots for exactly seventeen years. Or the fun-to-watch, high-stepping mating dances of the Blue-Footed Boobies, where the Boobies with the biggest and bluest feet get the girl every time.

Cats purring to manifest contentment, dogs wagging tails to manifest happiness, and human males…? Well, human males haplessly manifesting sexual interest in a way that once made the iconic 1940’s movie star Mae West ask, “So, is that a rocket in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”

(sorry…)

But you know, these behaviors don’t get learned in school. You ask me, the universe is just one colossal, highly engineered cuckoo clock…

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

So anyway, thanks for reading; and here’s your reward: just one af many, many YouTube cat-cucumber videos out there. Enjoy.

Home

WINGS

In remembrance of our Dad on this Veterans’ Day, Raymond Edward Lyford (1920-2016), who served in the Army Air Force and flew 35 missions as a radar operator on the B-29 Superfortress Bombers in World War II. His B-29 was shot down in a jungle in China. However, the aircraft was patched back together to fly more missions, thus being dubbed “Patches” (pictured below)

strange, me

being past middle-aged

balding

& not just a little insignificant

& still looking up to

my john wayne

ted williams dad–

knowing intellectually that

there are no heroes

not really

but having to plead guilty

to the charge

of hero-worship

of romancing with my

inner schoolboy heart

the mystique of that silver

b-29

terry and the pirates

fly-boy chapter

of your story

where you

flight-suited

& bomber-jacketed

all zippers & insignia

roared the wild blue yonder

in your seat-of-the-pants

roger-wilco world

of cabin pressure

intstruments

radar bogies

mae wests

bomb-bay doors

clamoring hearts

white knuckles

bated breath

curses

prayers

Home

TWO-HEADED MAN RUNS FOR MAYOR . . . AGAINST HIMSELF! AND LOSES…

Will Smith : “These” (tabloids) “are ‘the hot sheets’?”
Tommy Lee Jones: “Best investigative reporting on the planet. But go ahead, read the New York Times if you want.They get lucky sometimes.” —Men In Black

Yea, blessed are the supermarket tabloids for lo,

they shall deliver us down checkout grocery galleries

of cough drops & candy bars,

past the horoscopes & tv guides—

And blessed are you and I with our

free, life-long subscriptions to the

SUPERMARKET CHECKOUT HEADLINES

that exercise our otherwise atrophying

14-items-or-less express-lane brains—

for tabloid headlines wear so many hats:

—they champion successes of the handicapped:

GIRL WITH 14 FINGERS WINS TYPING CONTEST!

MUTE DRIVER HONKS OUT ROAD RAGE IN MORSE CODE!

BLIND SEX CREEP BUSTED AS ‘HEARING TOM’!

—they boggle the mind with life’s unexpected ironies:

STARVING CAMPER MAULS GRIZZLY!

CHAMPION BULLFIGHTER KILLED BY BULLDOZER!

CANNIBALS ORDER PIZZA — THEN EAT DELIVERYMAN!

—they clarify generalities:

RESEARCHER CALCULATES A SNOWBALL’S CHANCE IN HELL TO BE .000000000134%!

—they ease environmental anxiety:

SCIENTIST PROVES… EARTH IS GOING THROUGH MENOPAUSE: Global warming is Earth’s hot flashes!

—they showcase consequences of failing to make sober decisions:

DRUNKS FALL OFF ROOF AFTER BARTENDER DECLARES DRINKS ARE ON THE HOUSE!

—they provide educational updates:

CATHOLIC SCHOOL SISTERS TRADE IN WOODEN RULERS FOR

ULTIMATE DISCIPLINARY TOOL… NUN CHUCKS!

—they comfort those maxed-out on credit cards:

ANGRY BILL COLLECTORS SAY BUSH WON’T RETURN CALLS ON NATIONAL DEBT!

—they reveal the truth behind the proverbs:

SURVEY REVEALS BEST THINGS IN LIFE COST AT LEAST $5,000!

NEW STUDY SAYS ‘STITCH IN TIME’ SAVES ONLY 8!

HONESTY FALLS TO THIRD AS ‘BEST POLICY’!

—and finally, sometimes just make us think:

BEER CANS AND OLD MATTRESS FOUND ON MARS! hmmmm…

So… just like Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong I think to myself…

“What a wonderful world…”

VAMPIRE ELVIS IS ON THE PROWL, SAY COPS!

“FANG YOU, FANG YOU VERY MUCH!”

home

SHE’S INTO NUMBERS

by Tom Lyford 5/12/04

She’s into numbers

I’m into words

Numbers (just to please her)

parade goose-stepping

all spit&polish

columnrank&file to her

drum-major-baton cadence

under the Big Top of her

the 3-ring-binder, 3-ring circus

of her bookkeeper’s spreadsheet mind…

& to her sharp whistle, the digits wheel,

group & regroup smartly into the Good Ol’

Red & Black half-time extravaganza

(rah! rah!),

vault with spectacular precision,

somersault through numeric hoops,

dance on their hind legs

(tails all wagging as 1),

fly the arithmetic trapeze, & with

the greatest of ease, perform the boring

high-wire ledger-balancing “accts.” &

other acts of legerdemain to the polite

applause of all…

Now… put numbers under my command

& in no time they will deteriorate into

a rag-tag band of undisciplined

smoke’em-if-you-got’em goldbricks

forever whining to take 5 —

an unwilling occupational force in a country

of rebel resistance to numbers.

She’s into numbers… but me?

I don’t really care for numbers…

at all. No no, I’m into words…

I’m prejudiced. See…

I don’ need no steenkin’ nombres!

I’m an anti-numerite. I mean, what’s to like?

they’re all the same, they all look alike

You can’t tell’em apart

You seen one 1? Then you seen’em all

(all the 1’s are alike— little letter “i”

wannabes)

“1 is the loneliest number you can ever do…

2 can be as bad as 1: it’s the loneliest

number since the number 1”

& get this: there are just too many

negative numbers, know what I’m sayin’?

Numbers like… minus ten, right?

How’d you like to be a negative 10?

On, say, a scale of 1 to 10?

Oh, and…ever notice how “cosecant“

sounds a lot like “ ’course he can’t ” ?

Makes me wanna shout out, “Why,

of course he can” every time…

Plus… it’s not like there are really any

hot little numbers, you know? (Well,

except maybe 110 degrees in the shade

or Fahrenheit 451

but even those numbers are relative

to the words that must accompany

them… Yes, numbers are just

pathetic little word-wannabes)

But worse, numbers are the Nazis, so

military & rigid, precise & absolute

autocratic, and so class-conscious:

all that emphasis on… greater than

or… less than or equal to !

I’m much too democratic for numbers.

She’s into numbers—I’m into words.

I mean come on! Words have more fun.

Words are the blondes of symbols

(but intelligent blondes) always doing

something creative and different !!!

But with numbers it’s always

same ol’ same ol’S.S.D.D.,

been-there-done that-got-the T-shirt.

Surprise: 2 + 2’s never gonna = 13

& what else are numbers gonna do

besides add …subtract …divide????

Oh, numbers can multiply but they

can’t be fruitful & multiply…

and for stodgy numbers… there’s

no sex, no drugs, no rock’n roll,

Numbers can’t get drunk or buzzed:

(Hey 30, whattaya say we get

factored right ff our asses tonight!)

Jeez, numbers can’t even swear

because there are no dirty numbers

(well, OK, doing #1 #2, but…)

so that’s how boring numbers are

& there’s only 10 of them altogether

10 insubstantial little hen-scratches

count’em— 0 through 9…

3 times more repetitive than the

much more versatile 26 letters of the

superior alphabet from whence cometh

our world of lush and sexy words…

She’s into numbers…I’m into words.

Gotta be a left brain/right brain thing.

Hey, wanna kow something I do? OK.

I actually look up words! In dictionaries!

Hell no, even more: i read dictionaries !

For her, looking up words is like…

cleaning the oven… cleaning the toilet…

I love puns & palindromes;

she loves sales ledgers & sums.

I do onomatopoeia; she does audits.

Me? Metaphors & meter; her? Money matters

Poetry & prose for me;

principal & interest for her.

I can’t help looking upon integers

& interest with extreme dis-interest,

and I am just so nonplussed with

plusses & minuses.

So yeah. She’s into numbers…

Long ago, the numbers body-snatched

her soul, leaving behind her

look-alike pod, hatching integers

like spiders to protect

& to serve her, their Queen

their Numero Uno

All the evil little numbers…

millions of minions to do

her darkest bidding…

home

THUNDER ROAD

home

WITNESS PROTECTION COUNTY BLUES

(And now for something completely different)

WITNESS PROTECTION COUNTY BLUES by Tom Lyford

From the south and the west, they head northeast
born-again zombies, officially ‘deceased’
they come from Nowhere, just any old place
their backtracks, vanished – they’ve left no trace
followin’ the drinkin’ gourd’s cold north star
raisin’ your hackles like an old film noir
raisin’ your hackles like an old film noir

Got a fresh driver’s license, an accent urbane
they land up here in the backwoods of Maine
lookin’ like lost ones just been found
nervous shifty eyes just a-glancin’ all around
got a mortgage on a house sittin’ just up the hill
got a job makin’ fabric up at Guilford Woolen Mill
got a job makin’ fabric up at Guilford Woolen Mill

Buy their frozen pizzas at the local Shop ‘n Save
their kids go to school and they never misbehave
they never go to church and they never join a club
and never hang out at the local grille & pub…
man seems content with his nondescript life
woman kinda acts like a Stepford wife
yeah the woman kinda acts like a Stepford wife

Ask him his name and he’ll smile real polite
but he’s radiatin’ nervousness—he’s real uptight
and you know he’ll be a ‘Jones’ or a ‘Johnson’ or a ‘Smith’
he’s just lip-synchin’ recent memorized myth
and his first name’s ‘Tom,’ ‘Dick,’ or ‘Harry,’ ‘Ed,’ or ‘John’
not a name to call attention, just a name to make you yawn
not a name to call attention, just a name to make you yawn

You wonder what they’re doin’ here and what they did
are they some sorta modern-day Billy the Kid?
were they some kinda Godfather once in the news
makin’ too many offers that you couldn’t just refuse?
did they ever run guns for the CIA?
did they turn state’s evidence in court to get away?
did they turn state’s evidence in court to get away?

From the south and the west, they head northeast
born-again ‘zombies,’ officially ‘deceased’
they come from Nowhere, just any old place
their backtracks, vanished – they’ve left no trace
followin’ the drinkin’ gourd’s cold North Star
they arrive in droves—beneath the radar
got a whole new life and a new used car…

home

THE SAPSICLE KID, 1956

on my faithful steed

that answers to the name of trigger

i cowboy up pleasant street at a gallop

the green & cream columbia 1-speed

on one of those early-spring late afternoons

the temperature sundowning

south of freezing

the icy wind chill feathering my hair

my bare knuckles & ears white

with impending frostbite

& my spring jacket snapping

unzipped like a vest in the breeze

(you never see roy rogers riding

all buttoned up to the neck in three layers

or wearing mittens for his mom)

to whoa-up under the low naked limbs

of the playground maples

inching to a dead stop

feet still on the pedals

upright… balanced…

(trick rider that i am)

easy, fella

& slowly… eversoslightly

cranking myself uprightward & standing

poised precariously in the stirrups

the rodeo crowd applauding as one!

reaching up to pluck

the first of the finger fruit

a long, sap-sweetened icicle

flecked with bits of black bark

& clamp it in my teeth

like a longbranch cheroot

my tongue delighting itself

over the maple-swishersweet surface…

a big forerunner of

the marlboro man

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BUMMER II

USER GUIDE FOR TRANSITIONING MOTORCYCLE-GANG HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH STUDENTS FROM BADASS POETRY TO RELATIVELY GOODASS POETRY IN ONLY A FEW EASY STEPS…

Yes, in BUMMER I, I detailed how I played Pied Piper of Hamelin, nefariously luring my unsuspecting wannabe belligerents (aka the savage junior EXILES biker gang) into conforming to the strict tenets of the high school English curriculum (aka the poetry unit). And yes, it was touch and go there for a while. However, they don’t call me The Dudley Dooright of Poetry for nuthin’ (he always gets his…… men).

And once I had them somewhat “enjoying” my dark Harry Chapin songs, I obviously had to face the fact that there weren’t that many of them. So I had to line up some ammunition for our future 45-minute classes. I knew I would have to try to wean them off music eventually (but by all means gradually and imperceptibly). But in the meantime, an obvious middle step was protest songs. There are so many of those to choose from, and so that’s where I went next. Protest songs would the ideal buffer zone for moseying on over to real poems. The transition couldn’t be too abrupt.

Always I was re-enforcing the point that singer-songwriter’s song lyrics are POETRY. And so far, so good.

This next one, of course, was one of their favorites. OK, it was one of mine. Check it out on YouTube, too. It’s a hoot and a half. And like all protest songs, rather historical.

“I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ To Die Rag” by Country Joe and the Fish

Well, come on all of you, big strong men,
Uncle Sam needs your help again.
He’s got himself in a terrible jam
Way down yonder in Vietnam
So put down your books and pick up a gun,
We’re gonna have a whole lotta fun.

CHORUS

And it’s one, two, three,
What are we fighting for?
Don’t ask me, I don’t give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam;
And it’s five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain’t no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we’re all gonna die.

Well, come on generals, let’s move fast;
Your big chance has come at last.
Now you can go out and get those reds
‘Cause the only good commie is the one that’s dead
And you know that peace can only be won
When we’ve blown ’em all to kingdom come.

CHORUS
Come on Wall Street, don’t be slow,
Why man, this is war au-go-go
There’s plenty good money to be made
By supplying the Army with the tools of its trade,
But just hope and pray that if they drop the bomb,
They drop it on the Viet Cong.

CHORUS
Come on mothers throughout the land,
Pack your boys off to Vietnam.
Come on fathers, and don’t hesitate
To send your sons off before it’s too late.
And you can be the first ones in your block
To have your boy come home in a box.

Protest songs were pretty easy pickings, practically a dime a dozen. So I used the above song as a springboard. And since the subject of “Fixin’ to Die” is War, I turned to my vast collection of War Poetry. I wasn’t looking for gory blood and guts though. I wanted something with meaning, something with a little tad of philosophical thinking that even they could dig. Stealthy me.

Basically I told them to look at themselves. What follows is not word-for-word, only an approximation of how I chose to begin.

“Look at you guys. You’re so badass, you don’t put up with anything you don’t want. Honestly? I’m impressed. I even envy you with your commitment to defend your beliefs and your goals. You don’t put up with any crap at all, do you. And then if worst comes to worst, you’re willing to face whatever consequences there are. That’s ultra cool. I like that.

“But you’re also very lucky to have been born in an era where protest has become such a thing. It wasn’t always that way, you know. It wasn’t that way when I was your age. We were brought up to toe the line, to accept whatever your parents insisted on, and also of course whatever The Man told you to accept. You didn’t want trouble, you didn’t want to make any waves. How boring, right? I’m sure you look at my generation as a bunch of wimps compared to yourselves.

“Anyway, I’m not exactly certain when this protest spirit started to blossom, but it’s tied right in with the Draft and the Vietnam War. Young people started burning their draft cards. They began poking daisies and daffodils right down the National Guard’s rifle barrels pointed at them.

“Bob Dylan has an odd little song reflecting the early stages of the Big Change, where protestors were finding they had have a voice, they could just say NO to anything, even though it was officially mandated. He called it “Maggie’s Farm.” And whenever you hear “Maggie’s Farm” referred to in these lyrics, just think of it standing for The Parents, The School Principal, The Cop, The Draft, or whatever wannabe power was rubbing you the wrong way.”

Maggie’s Farm by Bob Dylan

Oh I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more
Well, I wake in the morning
Fold my hands and pray for rain
I got a head full of ideas
That are drivin’ me insane
It’s a shame the way she makes me scrub the floor
I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more

No, I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s brother no more
Well, he hands you a nickel
He hands you a dime
He asks you with a grin
If you’re havin’ a good time
Then he fines you every time you slam the door
I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s brother no more

No, I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s pa no more
Well, he puts his cigar
Out in your face just for kicks
His bedroom window
It is made out of bricks
The National Guard stands around his door
Ah, I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s pa no more

No, I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s ma no more
Well, she talks to all the servants
About man and God and law
Everybody says
She’s the brains behind Pa
She’s sixty eight, but she says she’s fifty four
I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s ma no more

No, I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more
Well, I try my best
To be just like I am
But everybody wants you
To be just like them
They sing while you slave and I just get bored
I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more

“Maggie’s Farm”went over fairly well with my little scholar-don’wannabes. It didn’t kill them, at any rate, but they weren’t really all that impressed. They’d all heard it before. But I did sense, after going over the individual lyrics as much as they allowed me to, that they were at least somewhat interested in the interpretation of Maggie’s Farm as a metaphor. Anyway, not bad for a biker gang. And I sensed by this point, they might also have begun to take a stand-offish interest in me, the Ichabod Crane at the front of the room, which couldn’t hurt. Collateral reward. I shamelessly like to think that they perhaps admired my spunk in taking them on in this nearly impossible task: me, a Jimmy Stewart in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, LOL.

So the next step? Continuing on with… well, sucking up to them. And God forbid, trying to slip a pure, unadulterated, non-lyrical “poem” in right under their suspicious noses. And I had one all picked out though, yeah, I knew it was a real longshot. Especially when, as I was passing out the printed lines of the poem I heard one of my biker boys exclaim. “Oh Jesus, guys, this one’s written by somebody called Jack the Pervert! No shit!”

Oh well, what did I expect, really? (After that, things went something, but not exactly, like this.)

Me: “OK, guys. This one’s written by a guy who was your age around 1915 or so.”

Them: “What, they had perverts back then too?”

Me: “Oh believe me guys, they had them way long before this author was around.”

Them: “This guy sounds stupid.”

Me: “He was a Frenchman.”

Them: “Yeah? That too? Well that figures.”

Them: “Christ, I woulda changed my friggin’ name at least, that’s for sure!”

Me: “His last name was actually pronounced prayVARE. In French. Doesn’t mean pervert. He was a famous movie-maker, writer, and poet. Died in 1977.”

Them: “Of What? Embarrassment?”

Them: “Getting beat up by a motorcycle gang?”

Them: “Jack the famous French pervert. Good riddance.”

Me: “Hey, listen up guys. If you can politely put up with me for just the next fifteen minutes, as scary and tough as that might be, I swear to you the next poem after this one is going to be so raunchy it’ll shock even you. I swear it.” (I had a couple of Bukowskis up my sleeve as ammo.)

Them: “You wish.”

Me: “Yeah, yeah, you’re right. And I could be wrong. But. Are you willing to prove me wrong, though?”

Them: “How? You wanna make another deal? Like, unless we fall down and drop dead on the floor of fright, we won’t have to do no more poems?”

Me: “Something like that, yeah? Only not with this poem. The one after this is when we’ll deal.”

Them: “Bullshit.”

Me: “Come on, please, guys. You tried me once. Dare to try me again?”

Anyway, yadda, yadda, yadda, and after more back and forth, I eventually had me a tenuous deal. But they made it clear that I really had to put up, or shut up. I told them I could live with that. So: following is the print out of the poem I was placing on their desks. I insisted on them quietly listening to me read it to them very slowly… and yes, twice (because it was so short and because I believe any poem should usually be read at least twice, if not more), before they could jump in and tell me in no uncertain words what they really thought it, regardless.

THE FAMILY by Jacques Prevert

The mother knits
The son goes to the war
She finds this quite natural, the mother

And the father?
What does the father do?
He has his business

His wife knits
His son goes to the war
He has his business

He finds this quite natural, the father
And the son
What does the son find?

He finds absolutely nothing, the son
His mother does her knitting,
His father has his business

And he has the war
When the war is over
He’ll go into business with his father

The war continues
The mother continues knitting
The father continues with his business

The son is killed
He doesn’t continue
The father and mother visit the graveyard

They find this natural
The father and the mother
Life goes on

A life of knitting, war, business
Business, war, knitting, war
Business, business, business

Life with the graveyard

OK, truth? This experiment was pretty much an utter fiasco, as you can imagine. The common adjective they could all agree on was…STUPID! I bet I heardthe word STUPID! about seventy-five times in the follow-up. And when I asked what any of them thought about what the author was trying to put across with this one, they hooted and sneered. “Can’t you read?!” they asked me. “Jeez! It’s all right there right out in front of you, for cryin’ out loud. I mean, it says it over and over: the wife knits, the son goes to the war, and the father has his business! I mean, wow, isn’t that friggin’ interesting story! Hey, dude, if that’s what a poem is, and you like that stuff, then man, it royally sucks being you more than I thought.”

Ah well. You win some, you lose some, and some get rained out. I’d given it he old college try. I did manage to get a couple of sentences squeezed in afterward, despite all the uproar, but it’s pretty doubtful any of them paid much attention to my explanation of”The Family.” However, in the bigger sense, I had won… in that I had secured for myself a chance for another go-round in that rodeo. In the next class, I had three poems in mind that would zap them like a fully-charged cattle prod. And I couldn’t wait!

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BUMMER III

So after a not-so-successful attempt at instilling the beginning of a love of poetry in the hearts of my little motorcycle EXILES with the poem “The Family” by Jacques Prevert (yeah, Jack the Pervert from my previous BUMMER II episode), I had to reach deep down into the dark recesses of my Poetry Arsenal. And the lethal weapon I pulled out (heh) was as ticklish as nitroglycerin: Bukowski!

A movie based on Charles Bukowsi’s life was aptly titled Barfly. Apparently, that’s pretty much what he was. Mickey Rourke played Hank, “Hank” being Charles’ popular nickname. Most of the film takes place in sleazy barrooms and hotel rooms with his sleazy girlfriend, Wanda (Faye Dunaway). Guess why. Right.

Hank lived his adult life as a functioning alcoholic.

Despite that life, he was a prolific and surprisingly successful writer. According to Wikipedia, “Bukowski published extensively in small literary magazines and with small presses beginning in the early 1940s and continuing on through the early 1990s. He wrote thousands of poems, hundreds of short stories and six novels, eventually publishing over sixty books during the course of his career. One of these works he titled Poems Written Before Jumping Out of an 8 Story Window,” (a title that hints at a darkness within the man). Songwriter Leonard Cohen once said of him, “He brought everybody down to earth, even the angels.”

The Wikipedia article further says, “Bukowski’s work addresses the ordinary lives of poor Americans, the act of writing, alcohol, relationships with women, and the drudgery of work. The FBI kept a file on him as a result of his column Notes of a Dirty Old Man in the LA underground newspaper Open City… In 1986 Time magazine called Bukowski a ‘laureate of American lowlife.’ Regarding his enduring popular appeal, Adan Kirsch of The New Yorker wrote, ‘the secret of Bukowski’s appeal … [is that] he combines the confessional poet’s promise of intimacy with the larger-than-life aplomb of a pulp fiction hero.’” So Bukowski, sleazy drunk that he was much of the time, enjoyed a global popularity, as the number of biographical texts dissecting the man will attest.

The first of his poems I selected for my EXILES (others were soon to follow) is “Me Against the World,” a seemingly appropriate motto for my boys. I’d discovered it serendipitously. One afternoon, browsing the Poetry Section of a Borders’ Book Store, I happened to pluck a random book from a display, flip it open to the middle like cutting a deck of cards and… Jesus, there it was. And it had already had me in its death grip after only the first six or seven lines. It felt as if I were to look into a mirror, I’d discover that I’d just suffered a metaphorical black eye! That was honestly a day I can’t forget.

Now I need to point out that this book was an anthology in the annual Best of American Poetry series, so “Me Against the World” wasn’t one of those elegant, cerebral pieces I apparently was expecting that day. I bought the book immediately. I’d become a Hank Bukowski fan immediately. I was taking my first step on a counterculturally sentimenal journey of a thousand Bukowski poems.

Back in the classroom, I opted to dramatically read the poem aloud first, before passing out the lyrics sheet. I wanted to grab their rapt attention the same way the poem had initially muckled onto mine in Borders. I began with the opening, “when I was a kid one of the questions asked was, would you rather eat a bucket of shit or drink a bucket of piss? I thought that was easy. ‘that’s easy,’ I said, ‘I’ll take the piss.’ ‘maybe we’ll make you do both,’ they told me.”

Now if you happen to be new to Bukowski, you are probably finding yourself as much in a state of shock as I was at first. Even nearly every one of those Exiles’ jaws had just landed in in their laps, not because the language came as a shock, but because the language had occurred spoken out loud by a high school English teacher in a public school classroom. It was an unusual moment indeed. But please, dear reader, please hold on and bear with me. You will be rewarded, I swear.

Back to the poem:

ME AGAINST THE WORLD

by Charles Bukowsky

when I was a kid one of the questions asked

was, would you rather eat a bucket of shit or

drink a bucket of piss? I thought that was easy.

“that’s easy,” I said, “I’ll take the piss.”

“maybe we’ll make you do both,” they told me.

I was the new kid in the neighborhood.

“oh yeah?” I said. “yeah!” they said. there were

four of them “yeah,” I said, “you and whose army?”

“we won’t need no army,” the biggest one said.

I slammed my fist into his stomach. then all

five of us were down on the ground fighting.

they got in each other’s way but there were

still too many of them. I broke free and started

running. “sissy! sissy!” they yelled. “going

home to mama?” I kept running.

they were right. I ran all the way to my house,

up the driveway and onto the porch and

into the house where my father was beating

up my mother. she was screaming. things were

broken on the floor. I charged my father

and started swinging. I reached up but

he was too tall, all I could hit were his legs.

then there was a flash of red and purple

and green and I was on the floor.

“you little prick!” my father said, “you

stay out of this!” “don’t you hit my boy!”

my mother screamed. but I felt good

because my father was no longer hitting

my mother. to make sure, I got up and

charged him again, swinging. there was

another flash of colors and I was

on the floor again. when I got up again

my father was sitting in one chair and

my mother was sitting in another chair

and they both just sat there looking at me.

I walked down the hall and into

my bedroom and sat on the bed.

I listened to make sure there

weren’t any more sounds of

beating and screaming out there.

there weren’t. then I didn’t know

what to do. it wasn’t any good outside

and it wasn’t any good inside. so I

just sat there.

then I saw a spider making a web

across a window. I found a match,

walked over, lit it, and burned

the spider to death.

then I felt better.

much better.

This gut-wrenching piece of creative writing still affects me, to this day. And believe me, did we ever have a great discussion, or what!? A discussion on the significance of this one, on them, and on me; a discussion on poetry, on creative writing. God, I was clam-happy at the end of that class period. Stories were triggered and told. I felt myself really starting to bond with these yahoos. And once again, I was left with the distinct feeling I’d won implicit “permission” to try one more poem. As long as it was written by this dude, good ol’ Hank Bukowski. Or somebody very much like him. You know. No Daffodils, no clouds. But I had a number of them waiting in the wings.

Stay tuned for a few more of my fave Bukowski hits coming up in my next episode, “Bummer IV.”

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LYFORD ON LOVE

PART ONE

(I’m calling this one “Part One,” not because I have a specific Part Two in mind at all. It’s just that, knowing me, I’ll probably have a couple hundred Parts on this theme. I mean, who knows?)

We begin…

As a 34-year teacher (a career that came to an end over two decades ago), I was forever unearthing priceless little tidbits of poetry from the many literature anthologies I’d inherited in whatever classroom I was assigned. That was one of the big English teacher perks, for me. I collected any and all the ones that touched me in one way or another, and now I carry around a gazillion of them in my iPhone (well, technically they’re warehoused in the cloud). But… anyway, sometimes when I’m languishing in a doctor’s waiting room, manning the circulation desk during the quiet moments at the local library, or riding in the passenger seat while my wife, Phyllis, drives the car, I can simply pull out the phone and alter my mood with a poem, just like that. And I have so many genres: love poems, war poems, protest poems, sci-fi poems, beat poems, horror poems, anger poems, hilarious ones, short ones, endless ones… you name it. Strange little things, smart phones. You never really know who’s packing what.

Sometimes there have been these important-to-me poems in my life that I’ve somehow managed to lose and, consequently, I’ve ended up investing a great deal of my years tracking them back down. Which is next to impossible if they’re ancient and especially if you can’t for the life of you conjure up the title or the poet’s name. But if and when I ever do recapture one of those, there’s a little celebration that goes on down deep inside me that flutters my heart (somewhat like A Fib only more fun). I kid you not.

Here’s a true story. About three or four months ago, a TV commercial was advertising an upcoming boxing match featuring a boxer whose last name was Saavedra. I probably shocked my wife when I leapt up of the sofa and shouted, “That’s IT! THAT’S HIS NAME!” Then of course I had to explain to her what the hell I was yelling about.

Well, a little poem that I’d discovered way, way back when had somehow vanished from my collection. It was just a snippet of a thing, a little love poem only a few lines long. Wouldn’t be deemed important to most of the citizens of our planet but, as I often say, we’re all occupying our own little unique spaces on the social spectrum, aren’t we. And yes, it was a love poem. I’m a sucker for love poems if they’re well-and-creatively written. The main reason I was having no luck recovering this one is because of the hard-to-remember-let-alone-pronounce name of the poet: Guadalupe de Saavedra. Plus wrack my brain as much as I could, the title refused to leave the tip of my tongue. For years! And then…

Bingo! There was some unpoetic dumb-ass boxer named Saavedra going to box some other unpoetic dumbass palooka on TV. And finally (and serendipitously) gifted with the boxer’s name, I only had to seek the help of the Great God Google. Ding! Retrieved it in five minutes!

The poem is titled “If You Hear That a Thousand People Love You.” And today is the perfect day for me to share this love poem here, it being Phyllis’ and my 57^th anniversary today (7/30). So that’s got me feeling all warm and fuzzy here. Spoiler alert: I’m such a damn romantic. But now that I’ve talked about it and put it on a pedestal, I imagine you’ll look at this piece off fluff and say, “What the hell does he think is so special about this thing?!” And that’s OK because, right after this poem, I’m going to share two or three poems I’ve written to Phyllis over time and, yeah, sure, they’re bound to be deemed head and shoulders above this one, right?

IF YOU HEAR THAT A THOUSAND PEOPLE LOVE YOU

by Guadalupe de Saavedra

If you hear that a thousand people love you
remember… Saavedra is among them.

If you hear that a hundred people love you
remember… Saavedra is either in the first
or very last row

If you hear that seven people love you
remember… Saavedra is among them,
like a Wednesday in the middle of the week

If you hear that two people love you
remember…one of them is Saavedra

If you hear that only one person loves you
remember…he is Saavedra

And when you see no one else around you,
and you find out
that no one loves you anymore,
then you will know for certain
that… Saavedra is dead

Yeah, not really such a great poem perhaps. But when I first found it, I was smitten. My favorite line is Saavedra is among them, like a Wednesday in the middle of the week. I dunno. I can identify with a love like that.

Story of my life with Phyllis: since I was a high school junior and she my freshman sweetheart in 1962-63, I went crazy writing poems for her, about her, and about us. I was a rhyming fool, a creator of bad doggerel (poetry written by dogs, I was once told). I don’t know why, but I was madly driven to capture The Adventure of Our Old-fashion Crush with all its ups and downs on reams of notebook paper. Each verse was honestly a sonnet in itself. I get this feeling I might still have a few “chapters” of those maudlin verses lying around somewhere, in a box maybe, but I couldn’t find them. Just as well, I imagine. I’m pretty sure I’d be embarrassed by them today.

Funny, immature me, I’d go to the movies and hear how cool Clark Gable or Cary Grant or Humphrey Bogart or Jimmy Stewart would speak to women, and then I’d try to model my own ‘lines’ after some of theirs. One time at Phyllis’ home, I was sitting at her kitchen table and watched her making me a cup of coffee. Then, as she brought it over to me, I dunno, the whole scene felt so domestic and she so wifely, that I Abruptly came out with this one: “Hey, you and me? Let’s grow old together.” Now how corny is that?

OK, I’ll tell you how corny it is. It’s laughingly as embarrassing as a Harrison Ford line in the 1973 film, American Grafitti. The year is 1962. Ford plays Bob Falfa, the reckless badass dude driving a hot, souped-up, black ’55 Chevy. Bob wants to prove his car is the fastest car in the valley. So, he’s itching to go up against Paul Le Mat’s character, John Milner, who drives the locally famous yellow 1932 Ford 5-window coupe, the hot rod that had long been the fastest car in the valley. Before the race, however, badass Falfa picks up Laurie (Cindy Williams) who’s virginal, vulnerable, and on the rebound from having just been dumped by her steady, Steve (Ron Howard). Unfortunately she’s about to become the lady-in-distress as Falfa has decided she will accompany him in the ill-advised speed race out on the outskirts of the city. But first, he tries to come on to her, in his way (who wouldn’t) but the way he attempts it is something that is so weird and awkward it caused me to cringe. First he grows all serious, then looks her straight in the eyes, and after a moment (what?) begins ridiculously singing “Some Enchanted Evening” from South Pacific. I know, right?! Don’t believe me? Stream the flick. It’s a wonderful film (with the exception of Ford’s musical come-on). But as awkward as that was, it’s a little bit too similar to my out-of-the-blue “Let’s grow old together” attempt. Oh well, it’s funny now. And of course it’s taken 60+ years, but Phyl and I eventually did succeed in accomplishing just that.

WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE

you crossed the square heading west on main… we were the yang and the yin

i was the fire & you were the ice, the odds stacked against us had loaded the dice

but we didn’t know that then

i watched you walk with your new friend & talk, unaware i was being reeled in

that was the fateful momentous day in our tinytown lives so mundane

just a fall afternoon with the sun dropping down

autumn leaves underfoot, yelloworange&brown

on the corner of north street and main

i watched you walk with my cousin & talk

(through the drugstore display window pane)

the gambler in me told my heart & my soul: though opposite charges attract

i’d look you in the eye & retain full control…

our fate’s cosmic die rode the crapshooter’s roll

& rolled boxcars— the odds had been stacked

(magnetic north pole & magnetic south)

our futures were processed & packed

the bi-polar pull of our gravities’ force set our orbital paths for collision

inevitable contact… there was no recourse

our hormones alone were our single resource

the dice roll had made its decision

no time for reflection, no room for remorse

the outcome was nuclear fission

when matter and anti-material collide: cataclysmic, the chain reaction

its thunderclap echoes through all space and time

it alters the future’s & past’s paradigm—

twin suns, we were lock-stepped in traction

each destined to fall as the other would climb

the orbital dance of co-action…

you crossed the square heading west on main (we were the yang and the yin

i was the fire & you were the ice

we were starcrossed as soulmates—indelibly spliced

but we didn’t know that then)

i watched you walk with your new friend & talk

aware you were reeling me in

FETCHING

needling your quilt in your lamplight halo

you look over and catch me

your “RCA dog”

gazing into your eyes

my spiritual tail beginning to wag

and me growling some humorous

something or other—

this old dog’s old trick

for fetching me

the biscuit

of your sweet

laughter

THE BIG CHILL

“we got married in a fever hotter than a pepper sprout”

— johnny & june carter cash

you were the spark

that ignited the fuse

for the

big bang

of my hitherto

relatively uneventful

love life

it flashing incendiary

roman candles & rockets

molotov-cocktail love

flame-thrower love burning

magnesium hot

launching me in a straight trajectory

right over lover’s leap at

e=mc²

but that was in my callow youth

today

like the olympic flame

my love for you

still burns

patient now & serene

fireplace cozy

cup of cocoa hot

electric blanket warm

Happy 57th anniversary to us (7/30 /1966 -7/30/2023)

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BUMMER

One of the all-time, proudest little moments of my high school English teaching career was the day I faced-off against a sophomore, all-boy classroom of the junior Exiles Motorcycle Club and announced that we were about to begin the required poetry unit. I’d been dreading the day since they and I first got the chance to look each other over back in September. I was a hell of a lot more intimidated by them than they were of me. Each wore the signature jean jacket with the sleeves torn off, leaving it pretty much a vest, with “EXILES” stenciled in an arc across the shoulder blades.. Despite the lack of the black leather jacket, which I’m guessing was above their pay grade, in my head I was quietly hearing the lyrics of a rousing 1950s song:

Click the YouTube link to enjoy the entire classic 50s ballad: https://youtu.be/TYFfgM78hJY

Black Denim Trousers (1955) by Vaughn Monroe

He wore black denim trousers and motorcycle boots
And a black leather jacket with an eagle on the back
He had a hopped-up ‘cicle that took off like a gun
That fool was the terror of Highway 101

Well, he never washed his face and he never combed his hair
He had axle grease imbedded underneath his fingernails
On the muscle of his arm was a red tattoo
A picture of a heart saying “Mother, I love you”

He had a pretty girlfriend by the name of Mary Lou
But he treated her just like he treated all the rest
And everybody pitied her and everybody knew
He loved that doggone motorcycle best…

from “Black Denim Trousers” –songwriters: Jerry Leiber / Mike Stoller

I was really nervous. However, by then I’d had a few weeks to better get to know the little badass wannabes as the unique and colorful individuals that in reality they were. And I’d been able to use that time to sweat over preparing possible strategies for this High Noon showdown. I’d come up with only one clever, albeit somewhat iffy, plan. It was a gamble. And if I lost, damn, I’d have to kiss my beloved poetry goodbye. Still, it was pretty clever. In the long run, it had been my jukebox brain that handed me the possible key: music! Because as Google tells us today (Google didn’t exist back then), “Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast…” Yes, and one day, somewhere between September and November, the ghost of Harry Chapin had stepped forward to potentially save this English major’s ass.

Now, these dudes dwelled on believing (actually knowing) that they were the ones in charge, regardless of who was being paid to be. And in that they could often be very (gulp!) convincing. So when I unsteadily announced, “OK guys. Starting today we’re diving into poetry for a few weeks…” I wasn’t entirely surprised by the volley of snide laughter that interrupted me mid-sentence, though it left me standing on shaky ground.

After the merriment died down, one of the guys (apparently the leader and spokesperson of this little band) mansplained to me (and yes, I realize that the term “mansplain” wasn’t even coined back there in the 70s but, in retrospect, that’s what it was) that no, we wouldn’t be taking part in any… poetry unit. Whereupon I felt obliged as “their teacher” to mansplain back to them that, yeah, I understood how they felt and all yet, still, it was mandated by the curriculum and all so there was really nothing we could do about it. Another volley of laughter!

(OK. Now before I go on, let me mansplain to you, dear reader, the actual reality at play here. Honestly? The administration couldn’t have actually cared less about what went on in my classroom with those particular yahoos, as long as it didn’t bring down any bad publicity on the school district. In other words, the principal himself knew that even he wouldn’t try teaching the appreciation of poetry to this crowd so… if I‘d wanted to (and as long as no one set fire to the classroom, got killed, and we didn’t get found out), I probably could’ve kept them busy all year doing book reports on Playboy. But the truth is, I love poetry, always have, and what I was feeling was the dire need to do something (anything) to save my own my sanity in that particular classroom! Poetry would do that for me, if I could only pull it off.

“No, guys, I’m serious. We don’t have any choice.”

“OK, fine. Go ahead then. You do it. Just wake us back up when it’s over. Or not. See, we don’t care what you do up there at the front of the room, do we, guys. We won’t pay any attention. But hey, whatever floats your boat, man. Have fun.”

I purposely let our give and take play out for a minute or two longer. I wanted to allow their egos to be wallowing in their little victory over The Man, confident they had easily crushed my frilly little poetry plans like a cigarette butt beneath their collective steel-toed boot. I wanted them in a festive, patting-themselves-on-the-back mood similar to the Trojans, drinking it up to excess as they lay beneath the deadly shadow of the infamous Trojan horse. Hopefully all the better to unload my supposed, and-hopefully-not-a-dud “ace” up my sleeve, heh heh. So I hoped anyway. I dunno, perhaps I’m a student of the art of war.

But finally I laid the ace down on the table before them. “OK, men. Looks like you got me. However, if you’re not too chicken to…gamble, I have a little proposition for you.”

“Gamble? You wanna gamble with us? Sorry, homeboy. I mean come on, dude. Poetry? Get real.” Another volley of laughter.

“C’mon on. Hear me out. I mean, if I’m gonna lose my job thanks to you yahoos, the least you can do is listen.”

“Whatever.”

“So. Tell you what. How about this? You let me try one single poem on you. Alright, it’s actually a song. But the lyrics? Lyrics are poetry. So…”

“What kind of music? Lawrence Welk? No, don’t think so.”

“I can’t stand Lawrence Welk either, so no. Feel better?”

“No. Not really.”

“But here’s the deal. All you hafta do is give me one shot. But the stipulation is… a half-hour shot, a full half hour, because I do want you to wait till I’m finished with it, right? No interruptions. At the end of which I call for a vote. Thumbs up. Thumbs down. Totally up to you guys. And I guarantee I will abide by your decision. Guarantee it. And so think about this. A) By doing this I can, in all good conscience, report back to the principal that yeah, I did poetry with you guys. I just don’t need to mention it was just one poem, eh? So you’re saving my bacon,” I lied, “and I won’t forget that. And… well, this is just between you and me, OK? And B) You get to trade away what might’ve turned out to be a three- or four-week unit of the dreaded poetry for you (yeah, sure, I know, just hearing me do it all by myself at the front of the room, but still…) all for a lousy, stinkin’ thirty freakin’ minutes of it. What a deal, right?”

“Yeah, you say guaranteed and all, but what if it turns out afterwards you’re lyin’?”

“Well, the way I look at it is, you’re the fierce biker gang here, right? I’m the Ichabod Crane.”

“The… what?“

“I mean, if I stiff you on this, you guys’ll probably kill me, so…”

“Oh yeah. There is that.”

“’Course I’m one pretty rugged fella…” Another volley. “But remember, I want your attention throughout this. And considering what you’re likely to gain in the deal, I think that’s a fair trade, don’t you?”

The little man in charge looked over his shoulder. “Guys?” There were a number of silent, cautious, almost imperceptible nods. He swung back around. “All right. We’ll give you a shot. But I’m warning…”

“Thank you. For your vote of confidence.”

“We ain’t voted yet.”

“Fair enough. OK. So here’s how it’s gonna work.”

“What’s it called? This so-called song?”

“Bummer.” They all grinned a little. “Yeah, you were imagining “Clouds” or “Daffodils, right?.” But… here’s how this is gonna work. I’ve printed up copies of the words,” I said, holding up a stapled, two-page, two-sided, single-spaced document.

“Jeez. What’s that? A friggin’ book? It’s long enough! I thought you said a poem.”

“It’s long. Yeah. But I believe you agreed to the stipulation that you hafta pay attention…

“Oh, believe me. I’m paying attention all right.”

“Sarcasm is cool. OK. But this song, “Bummer,” has a fairly long instrumental introduction. Sorry about that. It’s kinda gonna sound like some cop show theme, Starsky and Hutch maybe. I’m gonna let that play for a couple of minutes to set the tone. And meanwhile, I’ll be coming around passing out these lyrics to you. I’m asking you to follow along carefully, word for word, OK?”

And when, a moment later, I dropped the needle into the vinyl groove, I heard somebody mutter “Christ!’

(Bythe way, dear reader, do us both a favor and click on this YouTube link to listen along while you read the lyrics. I’m betting you’ll be impressed by both the content and the very creative arrangement. Hopefully, you’ll feel like one of the Exiles, if you do.) https://youtu.be/mL3eXX-na64

And here are the lyrics:

Bummer

by Harry Chapin from Portrait Gallery

His mama was a midnight woman
His daddy was a drifter drummer
One night they put it together
Nine months later came the little black bummer

He was a laid back lump in the cradle
Chewing paint chips that fell from the ceiling
Whenever he cried he got a fist in his face
So he learned not to show his feelings

He was a pig-tail puller in grammar school
Left back twice by the seventh grade
Sniffing glue in Junior High
And the first one in school to get laid

He was a weed-speed pusher at fifteen
He was mainlining skag a year later
He’d started pimping when they put him in jail
He changed from a junkie to a hater

And just like the man from the precinct said:
“Put him away, you better kill him instead.
A bummer like that is better off dead
Someday they’re gonna have to put a bullet in his head.”

They threw him back on the street, he robbed an A & P
He didn’t blink at the buddy that he shafted
And just about the time they would have caught him too
He had the damn good fortune to get drafted

He was A-one bait for Vietnam
You see, they needed more bodies in a hurry
He was a cinch to train ‘cause all they had to do
Was to figure how to funnel his fury

They put him in a tank near the DMZ
To catch the gooks slipping over the border
They said his mission was to Search and Destroy
And for once he followed and order

One sweat-soaked day in the Yung-Po Valley
With the ground still steaming from the rain
There was a bloody little battle that didn’t mean nothing
Except to the few that remained

You see a couple hundred slants had trapped the other five tanks
And had started to pick off the crews
When he came on the scene and it really did seem
This is why he’d paid those dues

It was something like a butcher going berserk
Or a sane man acting like a fool
Or the bravest thing that a man had ever done
Or a madman blowing his cool

Well he came on through like a knife through butter
Or a scythe sweeping through the grass
Or to say it like the man would have said it himself:
“Just a big black bastard kicking ass!”

And just like the man from the precinct said:
“Put him away, you better kill him instead.
A bummer like that is better off dead
Someday they’re gonna have to put a bullet in his head.”

When it was over and the smoke had cleared
There were a lot of VC bodies in the mud
And when the medics came over for the very first time
They found him smiling as he lay in his blood

They picked up the pieces and they stitched him back together
He pulled through though they thought he was a goner
And it forced them to give him what they said they would
Six purple hearts and the Medal of Honor

Of course he slouched as the Chief White Honkey said:
“Service beyond the call of duty”
But the first soft thought was passing through his mind
“My medal is a Mother of a beauty!”

He got a couple of jobs with the ribbon on his chest
And though he tried he really couldn’t do ’em
There was only a couple of things that he was really trained for
And he found himself drifting back to ’em

Just about the time he was ready to break
The VA stopped sending him his checks
Just a matter of time ’cause there was no doubt
About what he was going to do next

It ended up one night in a grocery store
Gun in hand and nine cops at the door
And when his last battle was over
He lay crumpled and broken on the floor

And just like the man from the precinct said:
“Put him away, you better kill him instead.
A bummer like that is better off dead
Someday they’re gonna have to put a bullet in his head.”

Well he’d breathed his last, but ten minutes past
Before they dared to enter the place
And when they flipped his riddled body over they found
His second smile frozen on his face

They found his gun where he’d thrown it
There was something else clenched in his fist
They pried his fingers open— found the Medal of Honor
And the Sergeant said: “Where in the hell he get this?”

There was a stew about burying him in Arlington
So they shipped him in box to Fayette
And they kind of stashed him in a grave in the county plot
The kind we remember to forget

And just like the man from the precinct said:
“Put him away, you better kill him instead.
A bummer like that is better off dead
Someday they’re gonna have to put a bullet in his head.”

I’ve gotta say, it was fun watching their changing expressions as they pored over the handout, following along, and it was especially a real hoot when Mr. Chapin sang the line, “Sniffing glue in Junior High and the first one in school to get laid.” One kid’s head popped right up looking at me wide-eyed, and he almost gasped in wonder, “Can you say that? In school, I mean?” to which I responded, “I dunno. Probably not.” (Keep in mind this was the early 70s after all, years fifty some ago.) But it also gave me a rush of inner joy to witness my kids, already budding outliers in their world, become emotionally affected, probably the very first time, by something at once both so crude and artistic. It felt kinda like one of those To Sir, With Love moments, you know?

Anyway, that was the day I began to fall in love with this little badass biker class.

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Tag: Poetry

GAS PUMP JOCKEY WITH THE SPOOKY

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PENITENTIARY FOR TODDLERS PART II

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I, YOUNG CYRANO PART II

“LOOKIN’ FOR THE OLD BLUE OX…”

THE ONE GAZING BACK AT YOU (From Your Mirror)

WINGS

TWO-HEADED MAN RUNS FOR MAYOR . . . AGAINST HIMSELF! AND LOSES…

SHE’S INTO NUMBERS

THUNDER ROAD

WITNESS PROTECTION COUNTY BLUES

THE SAPSICLE KID, 1956

BUMMER II

BUMMER III

LYFORD ON LOVE

BUMMER

Black Denim Trousers (1955) by Vaughn Monroe