Love Each Other

You get old, you get melancholy.  

And today, with what it is, and with me trying to bring something to the table, in these difficult times, I am shooting blanks.

Regardless of what happens to me, us, or the world, I just want to say that I did my best. 

My best may not have been that good, but it is what I had.    I took photos, I wrote.  I had nothing else to offer.

But in return for my little bit of love, please stay inside.  Please love one another.  Keep the other folks safe as best you can.

Stay inside, wear a mask, don't lick each other, blah blah blah.

That is truly all we can do.  Isn't it?

Flowing

I don't want to get too graphic.  That is not why you're here.

But I hadn't eaten for a week.  Nothing.  I'd been too sick.

You understand, though, how things have to flow?  I was not flowing.  Nothing in a week.

So I started with wine.  Wine is made from grapes.  Grapes are, like prunes, sorta. 

Then I ate a half a bowl of raisin bran.  Nothing.

So I went whole hog and ate a French bread pizza.  Bread, cheese, pepperoni..  My body laughed at the pizza.  Is that all you've got?

Well, I've got more wine.  My body said HAHAHAHAHA!  Go for it.  Let me know how that works for you.

Underwear

Moms.  They made us change our underwear every day.

Well, lying here in bed, I wondered why? 

So I didn't for three days.  I heard my mom yelling at me.

Bathroom poetry

Bathroom poets.

When I was a young guy, I wrote in the bathroom at GE, where I worked.  The bathroom was where we all wrote.  Bathroom poets, all of us.

And now, as an author, looking back, the bathroom is where I had my beginnings.  On bathroom walls.

Some come here to sit and think.

Some come here to shit and stink.

I come here to scratch my balls and read the poems on the walls.

Sorry, Becky.  As your dad, I am supposed to be the adult.  I am a bad example.

GE apprentices from building 9 are now laughing their butts off.  We all did it. 

And we all had pen names, so we didn't get in trouble.  Mine was Cobra Jet.  I desperately wanted a red Mach I Mustang.  A 351,  4 barrel, cobra jet.  I still do.

Just Toss It

Why do we do what we do?

I dunno.

Sometimes, because it is there.  Sometimes, we have no idea.

Who ever thought that tossing the caber was a thing?

The Scots. That's who.

"I am gonna pick this log up and see how far I can throw it."

And I guess that is all we need to know. About cabers. About Scots. About life.

When life hands you a caber, just toss it.

We're all just doing the best we can.

So when life hands you a twenty foot 175 pound log, just toss it.

Learning To Read

My father was raised by his grandparents during the Depression so his mother (my grandmother) could work.

Every morning, across the breakfast table, his grandfather (my great-grandfather) would read the newspaper to him, following the sentences with his finger so my father could follow along. I don't recall how old my dad was, but this was pre-school.

What no one realized was that my father learned how to read from his grandfather reading the newspaper to him every morning. They didn't know what to make of it.

Later, when he read, he held his book upside down.

Getting Paid

I "got paid" today, which means I received my monthly social security check for those of you who are retirement impaired.

So I ordered my staples for the month. Staples, for me, consists of a 2 lb. bag of coffee beans, a bunch of yogurt, and a whole lotta rice. I buy from Instacart because they deliver.

Instacart always tells me how much time I've saved shopping by using them. 65 hours as of today. If I'd saved 6.5 minutes, I would have grabbed it. I hate to shop. For anything.

What's sad is that, as a kid in the 1950s, I would go with my mom every Wednesday to buy groceries at the Central Market. Wednesdays were double S&H Green Stamps day. She would spend $25 to $35 for a shopping cart full of food. I just spent $200+ for rice and yogurt.

Yes, 20% of that $200 is a tip for the Instacart shopper. But I saved 6.5 minutes.  And to me, that is worth it.

Jerome

Most residents of a small Georgia town I lived in briefly know Jerome. He lives on a moored Catalina 22 just outside of the marina.  Jerome loves to plant flowers.  Wildflowers.  He planted them everywhere.  Alongside roads, in a median, anywhere and everywhere.

Sammy was travelling down a road in this town and there was Jerome on a bulldozer. He somehow got his hands on it and he was bulldozing a place to plant flowers. Sammy stopped him.

"Jerome? Is this your land?" asked Sammy.

"No," said Jerome. "Is it yours?"

Sammy just laughed and said "Well, Jerome, I have to admit, you've got me there."

Sammy went on his way and Jerome kept bulldozing.

Now, I know southerners like to tell tales and all... but I just have a hunch that there is some basis in truth here. Or maybe, Sammy just got a yankee real good.

Miss Filer

A long time ago, my ex-wife was working in a nursing home in Saratoga. 

One day, she said to me "Didn't you say that you had a teacher named Miss Filer?" 

Well, yes I did, and it turned out that she was a resident there.

I arranged to visit her. When I got to the home's nurses' station, they asked me to wait while they got her ready. While waiting, I asked how she was doing.

"She's OK," was the answer, "She fades in and out.  She's suffering from dementia. She sings little songs that we don't understand."

Well, I did understand.

When they brought me to her room, I introduced myself. She had no idea who I was. But then I said "The nurses tell me that you sing to yourself. Is that right?"

With that, she smiled and her eyes lit up, and Miss Filer and I sang the cosine song.

The sine of thirty is a half.
The cosine is a half square root of three.
And the poor old tangent, yes the silly old tangent is a third square root of three.

I remember that song, clear as a bell. I can't even begin to tell you what a cosine is anymore.

And she would ring a loud bell.  

"Attention class! David has completed a proof!" 

Yeah... I don't remember what a proof is, either. I guess it must have been important.

Being a Dinosaur

OK, I admit it. I was wrong, and I feel like a dinosaur.

The last TV I bought was a 40" LCD back in 2008. I thought it was the cat's ass.

I stopped watching much TV when Pamela and I cruised down the coast. No point, really. TV reception was spotty, and we only used the TV for movies.

Fast forward to 2020. I just bought a TCL 55" 4k insert-a-bunch-of-numbers-and-letters-here. All I can say is holy crap.

Now, in my little apartment, I sit maybe 8' away from the screen. The colors and resolution are beyond belief. I can stick my nose right up to the screen and it's like looking someone in the face. Every crease and wrinkle is right there.

So until the novelty wears off, I'm exploring. I watched the movie "Extinction", CNN Go, ABC News, and a Nat Geo special on Hitler's V2 rocket program. All without an antenna or cable. Just the internet. This is the bomb.

I should have done this long ago.

Now I really feel like an old man.

"In my day, we had a 25" console TV with round edges. It was black and white and got two channels, and we were happy we had it!"

2020?

I woke up this morning and glanced at the clock radio. 8:16 AM. A bit early to start my stay-at-home day, but a good time to get up. I stared at the ceiling for a moment, getting my eye to focus. I sat up and put my feet on the floor. I stood, letting my creaky old bones get in place. I walked into the bathroom. Peed.

I walked out of the bathroom. It was 10:14. 

Apparently, I had passed through a portal in the space-time continuum into the future. Is it still 2020?