Somewhere along the path I’ve taken a wrong turn.  From the looks of things, it would appear I am standing in a rubbish trap.  I don’t know how else to describe it.  Seems the only things I’ve been writing about are things you’d find in a person’s rubbish pile.  It’s a bad sign.

Where’s the news and current weather?  Where’s my spin on world events?  Where’s my ability to describe yesterday’s shopping trip - my first clothes shopping in roughly two years - where I discovered I felt lost and unprepared to make fashion decisions?  Buried under a huge pile of rubbish, that’s where it’s at.  Somewhere under that heap of woe is me crap lies a small pile of fresh thoughts and ideas.  I’m just hoping I had the sense seal them up tight in some sort of ziploc contraption before everything went rubbish on me.

I did have one idea yesterday, while I was wandering around lost among the racks of clothes.  It occurred to me that stores are missing out on a great opportunity to boost sales by ignoring shoppers just like me.  I am surely not the only man in town who has lost his sense of fashion direction.  I imagine there are great numbers of us.  We are a force to be reckoned with.  We are a potential cash crop.  And the technology to harvest us is already in place.

First, there are cameras everywhere, already watching our every move.  Someone, somewhere already possesses the ability to know when I am lost.  The problem, it would seem, is that they aren’t watching me to help me, but rather to make sure I am not trying to steal anything.  Steal?  For god’s sake, I can’t even decide what it is I would buy!  The eyes behind the cameras are missing the whole point.  The vast majority of people like me aren’t looking to steal something.  Far from it.  We’re just looking for direction.  We need reassurance.  We need suggestion.  We need, like it or not, a woman’s opinion.

And that’s my idea.  Undercover women employees who seek out the lost and confused male shopper to help him with his purchase.  Women with little, invisible microphones tucked into one of their ears so that the person behind the hidden cameras, who watches all and sees everything like a great and powerful Oz, can whisper to the secret, undercover woman employee, “Lost man.  Early 40’s.  Appears to be having minor trouble making a shorts decision and major trouble picking out a short sleeved shirt.  Seems to lean towards blues and greens.

And then the woman, who looks nothing like a store employee at all, no smock or cheap plastic name badge or attitude that she’d rather be anywhere else in the world, would casually approach, looking like she is doing some shopping herself.  She would glance at the racks of men’s clothes, pretending to look for something special.  Maybe for her father, maybe her husband.  Or it might be for a small boy or even a lover.  This would all depend on what has been whispered into her ear and how it pertains to your apparent shopping trouble.

The undercover woman would move into your life so slowly that you wouldn’t even know what was happening.  Even if you knew about the undercover women sales force you would be taken off guard because, let’s face it, we want to be.  Lost shopping men are like this.  We’re desperate for advice.  Like I said, we’re a cash crop, just ripe for the picking.

I don’t need to give you a detailed play by play about how this thing pans out.  You know how it works.  She makes eye contact while he has a particular shirt or pair of pants or shoes in his hands, then says something innocent and subtle, like ”Oh, those are nice,” then moves away for a bit, leaving the lost shopping man to ponder his next move.  Maybe she says more, maybe not.  Maybe she doesn’t have to.  Maybe she only has to pick up certain shirts and smile approvingly to sway the lost shopping man.  Or maybe she moves in close and strikes up a conversation, and the lost shopping man ends up with a whole shopping cart of clothes that he now knows are perfect.

And the undercover woman, when she begins to sense that the lost shopping man has been pushed as far as he can go, simply looks up into one of the hidden cameras, gives an almost imperceptible thumbs up, and waits for the whisper in her ear - her next assignment.  The earpiece is rarely silent.

Shoe aisle 3.  Single father with rambunctious eight year old son.  Let me check the tapes . . . yes, just as I thought.  He’s already survived the sock and underwear department, as well as convinced the boy the try on four different pairs of pants.  The two have argued briefly, but the father looks like a pushover.  The boy does most of the talking.  Both the father and the boy look hungry and may have grocery shopping still to do.  The father is obviously tired and may be getting cranky.  Approach with caution.

“Nothing I haven’t handled a million times,” the undercover woman thinks to herself as she calculates commissions in her head and begins her innocent-looking approach towards the shoe department.

The biggest baby ever born weighed in at over 100 pounds, and according to my eight year old source, left the mother’s vagina ripped and infected for the rest of her life.  A baby so big - surprising.  That my son has such intimate knowledge of the birth - even more surprising.  But it’s what happened to the baby next that is the icing on the cake.  Stay tuned.  Details soon to follow.

And on a kinder, less gruesome note (well, sort of), find out how it feels to shop with a young boy as he seeks out the polka section at the local Borders.  Find out what it’s like to have a child possessed by oddness.  Read the thoughts of a father as one employee yells loudly across the store to another, “Hey, this guy wants some polka!  Can you help him find the polka section?!”

Everyone polka!  Well, maybe not the infected mother of the 100 lb. baby.  She probably needs her rest.

It seems ridiculous to play the sleeping beauty card, but I don’t know what else to do.  My just a half an hour won’t hurt nap somehow turned into three hours.  How could that happen?  There aren’t any poison apples in the house.  I don’t even like apples.

Maybe it had something to do with the divorce conversation just prior to me falling into the recliner.  Those conversations are more tiring then any fairytale apple ever thought of being.  I should write a children’s story where the evil witch is a divorce attorney, and every time they cackle the mailbox rattles and notarized documents magically appear.  Now that would be scary.

So my normal twelve to fourteen hour work day, which I try very hard to cram into nine or ten, is now seriously behind schedule.  Three hours will be hard to make up.  Four hours if you count all of the stretching and yawning required to bring me back up to speed.

How does this effect you, the gentle reader?  Not much at all, really, except that you will now find yourself having to wait for the tale of the 100 lb. baby.  I know.  You were at the edge of your seats.  But come on, isn’t anticipation what stories are all about?  Isn’t half the fun not knowing what comes next, or at the very least, not knowing when it will arrive?

Like . . . will I ever wake up?  What if I fall asleep in my recliner one day and just never wake up?  What if I just sleep and sleep and sleep?  Would my body eventually shrink down really tiny so that it completely fits under the irritatingly small lap blanket?  How many years of sleeping would it take before I shrunk enough for my feet to stop poking out and getting cold?  And do you think someone would stop by with chapstick once in awhile, just to make sure my lips didn’t dry out?

I need to get to work!  Quick!  Someone kiss me!

No one kissed me but I still woke up.  Proof that there is no such thing as real life.  It’s all a fairytale.

But I still haven’t caught up with yesterday, even though a whole night has passed.  Maybe this is real life.  But just before going to bed it seemed different, as I walked through the park under the firs.  The path was so soft and springy, freshly covered with hogsfuel.  I sat and pushed down with my feet, watching them as they first sank into the path, then sprang back up.  Only a friend would know how much force to push back with.  It takes friends to push us in ways that make us feel good.  Last night the path felt good, like a friend.  It pushed me along beneath the firs and through the twilight, meandering through the park and along the creek, eventually ending somehow right alongside my bed.  I crawled in and went straight to sleep.

This morning I have the pleasure of accompanying my son and his class on a field trip to a pet store, where the focus is suppose to be on tropical fish.  I’ve been on this type of outing before (although not nearly enough), so I know that the magic number is 5.  The teacher divides the kids into groups of five and presents them to parents just like me for safekeeping.  I learned my lesson on the first field trip, so this time I am prepared.  A small piece of rope, wrapped tightly around my five should not only keep them all together, but together in a neat, tight bundle.  I imagine if I wrap the rope tight enough, I’ll be able to sit on the same bus seat with all five at once.  I’m sure they’ll think it’s fun.

I popped wide awake at 4:00 this morning, ready to go.  Yesterday’s nap still hard at work I imagine.  I’m drinking coffee, even though I made the claim that I quit, and it tastes perfect.  I did quit, but just not forever.  Nothing is forever.  But quitting for the time that I did made me realize that sex is much easier to go without then coffee.  Were you aware of this?  I know this sounds as improbable as the mysterious 100 pound baby, and it doesn’t even seem that things would work out this way, but it’s true.  But the last thing I would want anyone to do is to go out and test me on this one.  It would be much easier on everyone involved if you just went along with me for once.  Believe me.  Trust me.  Take my word for it.  Convince yourself that I speak the truth.  You won’t be sorry.  I can honestly say that I would hardly ever lie to you.  At least on purpose.  Or without a very good reason.

I feel like I’m beginning to jabber on like I did have sex last night, which I assure you I did not.  I didn’t even think about it.  No, it’s the coffee.  I swear.  But that’s my point.  Do you see it?  The two are nearly interchangeable.  As far as I can tell, their only difference lies in their timing.  At least for me.  One I prefer in the morning, and the other (if I remember correctly) was best anytime after lunch.  But I digress.

Anyway, the window above my desk is open, cool air blows in, and the birds are chirping up a storm.  What is it they sing about?  I wish I knew because it feels like I’m missing out on something.  Is it the exact same thing every single morning?  The same song?  The same easy message?  Can life really be that simple?

I’ve just been reminded that talking is certainly a tiresome business.  So much energy for such a small return. 

I may begin taking more naps, like yesterday’s.  I’ll call it an experiment in self-preservation.  I’ll hang a Do Not Disturb sign around my neck.  Anyone who stops by can scratch out their thoughts on the pad of post-it notes I’ll leave beside me, then just stick the note to my forehead.  When I wake up, all I’ll have to do is feel my head for messages. 

Very little movement and no talking.  Most efficient.

In a house filled with nothing but storytellers, it is sometimes hard to know what to believe.  Fact and fiction live side by side, or more accurately, in one big tumbled mess that has no apparent regard for order.  It can be frustrating and disconcerting for the uninitiated, and might easily be compared to the first few hot days of spring.  Those first couple of days where the temperature soars into the upper 80’s and the heat is sticky and uncomfortable and almost unbearable until one has had a chance to acclimate to the sudden change.  But our bodies adjust and our minds right along with them, and once this is done, the warmth becomes both pleasurable and expected, and for as long as the season lasts, you can’t imagine a time without it.

That’s what it’s like in our house of storytellers.  The conversations roll through like rapidly changing seasons, one constantly replacing the next, each an unreliable mix of both things real and unreal delivered with the straightest of faces.  It is hard to know what to believe.  Truth exists in our house, somewhere and somehow, but it’s a hard thing to get a hold of.  The stories that come out of our mouths too often sound as if the breath needed to deliver them was sucked from the idea of a helium balloon, too shriveled and old to float on its own. 

Take, for example, the story of the 100 pound baby.

Yesterday and today are fast and deliberate with no time for thinking.  Precision is imperative.  Believability hinges on perfect timing.

You might compare my life to a Drew Barrymore fight scene in a Charlie’s Angels movie.  With perfect choreography it is almost halfway believable.  But mostly you’ll find yourself scoffing and wishing for your money back.

Of course, this may all just be a big crock of make believe.  I’ve never actually seen Drew Barrymore in a Charlie’s Angels movie.  Maybe she doesn’t fight at all.  Maybe she just falls in big puddles and stands around shivering in wet clothes.

If that’s what happens, then go ahead and imagine that one instead.  It sums things up just as well.

Three hours down the interstate places me in Grants Pass, Oregon, only minutes away from the in-law’s house.  One of these trips will end up being the last I make where she and I are there at the same time.  It is inevitable.  Her mother is so kind and full of hope that to bring our collapsed marriage into their home on Mother’s Day seems almost cruel.  She will want to know what is happening.  She will only want to hear what she wants to hear.  She will ask questions and her heart will break.  I will answer her with only the simplest of answers, keeping from her most of the facts and the brunt of the real pain.  I will protect her, but still she will feel broken.

Occasionally there are days that I think would feel better if I were wearing the skin of another.

Monday is filled with business.  All of the sadness that I thought would be hanging around following the Mother’s Day trip is simply nonexistent.  Or maybe I just can’t see it.

As I walked through the door Saturday night, my intuition on high alert, I had no idea that I had it aimed in all of the wrong directions.  I was ready for almost anything.

“Hello!” (Hugs, hugs, hugs)
“Hello!” (Hugs, hugs, hugs)

“Keith!  You’ve put on a few pounds.” Not a question.  A statement.

“It looks good on you.” It? There will be no talk of relationships that day.  It will be the topic of choice.  It has saved the day.

I relax.  Somewhere inside myself.  Somewhere inside it.

If I tell you about a 100 pound baby, or Thor in Arkansas, or about how Imaginary Keith is going to travel back in time, I am telling a story.

If I tell you the story will be finished later that same day, I am telling a lie.

But I won’t know it is a lie until later, which is, of course, too late.

Intentions, no matter how great, are only lies that have not yet become truth.  They dance all around us, like unseen faces at a masquerade.

I am no liar.  But I am certainly filled with intentions.

In a house filled with nothing but storytellers, it is sometimes hard to know what to believe.  Fact and fiction live side by side, or more accurately, in one big tumbled mess that has no apparent regard for order.  It can be frustrating and disconcerting for the uninitiated, and might easily be compared to the first few hot days of spring.  Those first couple of days where the temperature soars into the upper 80’s and the heat is sticky and uncomfortable and almost unbearable until one has had a chance to acclimate to the sudden change.  But our bodies adjust and our minds right along with them, and once this is done, the warmth becomes both pleasurable and expected, and for as long as the season lasts, you can’t imagine a time without it.

That’s what it’s like in our house of storytellers.  The conversations roll through like rapidly changing seasons, one constantly replacing the next, each an unreliable mix of both things real and unreal delivered with the straightest of faces.  It is hard to know what to believe.  Truth exists in our house, somewhere and somehow, but it’s a hard thing to get a hold of.  The stories that come out of our mouths too often sound as if the breath needed to deliver them was sucked from the idea of a helium balloon, too shriveled and old to float on its own. 

Take, for example, the story of the 100 pound baby.

Stories have a way of unraveling the more they are told.  They become like the skin of an apple that has been peeled in one long continuous carefully swirled cut.  The best you can hope for is to hold it there in your palm and remember the way it once was, in the beginning.  That’s how it is in our house of storytellers.  Nothing keeps its shape.  Everything, one way or another, will end up unraveled.

As with most stories, the story of the 100 pound baby began around a simple idea - a baby is born.  It sounded like the kind of story I like, so I listened as I brushed my teeth and got ready for bed.  I’ve always liked stories with simple beginnings.  I’m a sucker for fairy tales and children’s books.  I like reading big, blocky words that flow around colorful pictures of kids with abnormally large, round heads and big, toothy smiles.  I like talking animals and folklore, mythology and anything to do with someone sneaking around causing mischief.  I like simple lessons and problems with clear solutions.  A story about a 100 pound baby sounded right up my alley, so I listened.

“Dad, the baby was born just like any other baby.  Except this one was big.  Really big.  The mother screamed and wiggled around quite a bit to get him out.”

“Well, having a baby is hard.  It hurts.  Just about everyone screams and wiggles around.”

“No Dad, you don’t understand.  This baby weighed 100 pounds!”

100 pounds?  Funny, that this baby should happen to weigh the exact same amount as my son, the storyteller.  I keep this fact to myself.

“Dad, the baby came out just about as big as me.  It couldn’t talk or anything, but it was big.  Two doctors picked him up and weighed him and the scale said exactly 100 pounds.”

“I’ve never heard of anything like this.  Why didn’t I hear about this on the news?”

“It was on the baby channel.  I watched it there.”

“I’ve never heard of the baby channel.”

“Well that doesn’t mean anything.  I saw it and I know what I saw.”

“Okay.  But I don’t see how anyone could have a 100 pound baby.  I don’t think that’s possible.”

“Dad, I saw it.  That’s why the mom was screaming and wiggling.”

I think about the births that I’ve seen up close, or at least about the births that I can remember seeing up close.  Medicated, numb events, with mother’s so worn out from the pain that you find yourself glancing at the monitors just to see if she’s still alive.  And these were the result of ten pound babies.

“A 100 pound baby must really hurt.”

My son’s voice suddenly grows quieter, and he leans in close, like someone else might hear, even though we are alone in the apartment.  This is important, I can tell.  I stop brushing so I don’t miss the hushed words.

“Her vagina ripped dad.  The baby was too big and it ripped.  It ripped and was infected for the rest of her life.” He says the word infected with added emphasis.  I hear him do this, but find myself missing the point.  I don’t know what to say, and must be staring at him because he keeps talking.  “I saw it dad.  It was all on the baby channel.”

I turn back to the mirror and see myself brushing my teeth.  There are probably a hundred things I should ask my son at this very moment.  It would probably be an excellent time to launch into a serious discussion about childbirth and reproduction and anything else I could happen to think of.  But I can’t really think of anything.  I see him there in the mirror’s reflection, my little storyteller, his eyes wide and excited as he watches me and waits for my response.  There is, it sometimes seems, no story without there also being a response.  What good is a story if it doesn’t have a listener?  In the mirror, I watch him.  Unobserved.  He is still too young to see that inside of every story lies yet another story. 

I pretend to finish brushing my teeth, buying time as I think of what I might say.  There is really no telling what he has seen on television.  Maybe he did watch a birth.  Maybe he did witness the pain of childbirth and is putting it back together in a way that makes sense to him.  Who knows, maybe there was a woman who gave birth to a 100 pound baby and everyone knows about it except me.  The point is, I will never really know what he has seen.  I could question him and try to pin him down on the facts, but at eight years old, he already knows his way around a good story.  Truth, wherever it is, will be a hard thing to get a hold of.

I say the first thing that comes to my mind.

“Are you sure you mean infected?  Maybe you mean affected?”

A 100 pound baby is born and I try to argue semantics with an eight year old boy.  He is having none of it.

“Dad!  It was a 100 pound baby!  I’m pretty sure you’d get a bad infection from something like that!”

I turn out the bathroom light and climb into bed.  How can I argue with that kind of logic?

“Dad?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to hear the best part of the story?”

“You mean there’s more?”

“Of course.  Don’t you want to hear about what happened to the baby?”

He crawls into bed next to me, flipping the blankets and fluffing pillows.  I hear his head plop down in the dark, and the sound makes me think of him as a cartoon in a book.  His words will soon be all around us, big, blocky letters adding a comfortable weight to the blankets.  His head will be as big and round as a 100 pound baby’s, and the story will unravel around his eyes, big and wide in the darkness.

I have been on this raft now for two years, a small scratch marking the setting of each sun.  When the water calms I stand and look around.  But mostly the waves are too rough and it is all I can do to hold on.  This morning the water was extremely rough and tossed the raft as if it were nothing at all.  From the top of a crest I caught a glimpse of the distant horizon, and for a brief second I saw that there was still no land in sight.

Because sometimes it’s just easier to let someone else do the writing.

Compliments of In These Times.
Led to by Welcome to Mark Maynard’s World

Cold Turkey

By Kurt Vonnegut

Many years ago, I was so innocent I still considered it possible that we could become the humane and reasonable America so many members of my generation used to dream of. We dreamed of such an America during the Great Depression, when there were no jobs. And then we fought and often died for that dream during the Second World War, when there was no peace.

But I know now that there is not a chance in hell of America’s becoming humane and reasonable. Because power corrupts us, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power. By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas.

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When you get to my age, if you get to my age, which is 81, and if you have reproduced, you will find yourself asking your own children, who are themselves middle-aged, what life is all about. I have seven kids, four of them adopted.

Many of you reading this are probably the same age as my grandchildren. They, like you, are being royally shafted and lied to by our Baby Boomer corporations and government.

I put my big question about life to my biological son Mark. Mark is a pediatrician, and author of a memoir, The Eden Express. It is about his crackup, straightjacket and padded cell stuff, from which he recovered sufficiently to graduate from Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Vonnegut said this to his doddering old dad: “Father, we are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is.” So I pass that on to you. Write it down, and put it in your computer, so you can forget it.

I have to say that’s a pretty good sound bite, almost as good as, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” A lot of people think Jesus said that, because it is so much the sort of thing Jesus liked to say. But it was actually said by Confucius, a Chinese philosopher, 500 years before there was that greatest and most humane of human beings, named Jesus Christ.

The Chinese also gave us, via Marco Polo, pasta and the formula for gunpowder. The Chinese were so dumb they only used gunpowder for fireworks. And everybody was so dumb back then that nobody in either hemisphere even knew that there was another one.

But back to people, like Confucius and Jesus and my son the doctor, Mark, who’ve said how we could behave more humanely, and maybe make the world a less painful place. One of my favorites is Eugene Debs, from Terre Haute in my native state of Indiana. Get a load of this:

Eugene Debs, who died back in 1926, when I was only 4, ran 5 times as the Socialist Party candidate for president, winning 900,000 votes, 6 percent of the popular vote, in 1912, if you can imagine such a ballot. He had this to say while campaigning:

As long as there is a lower class, I am in it.

As long as there is a criminal element, I’m of it.

As long as there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

Doesn’t anything socialistic make you want to throw up? Like great public schools or health insurance for all?

How about Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes?

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. …

And so on.

Not exactly planks in a Republican platform. Not exactly Donald Rumsfeld or Dick Cheney stuff.

For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course that’s Moses, not Jesus. I haven’t heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere.

“Blessed are the merciful” in a courtroom? “Blessed are the peacemakers” in the Pentagon? Give me a break!

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There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don’t know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president.

But, when you stop to think about it, only a nut case would want to be a human being, if he or she had a choice. Such treacherous, untrustworthy, lying and greedy animals we are!

I was born a human being in 1922 A.D. What does “A.D.” signify? That commemorates an inmate of this lunatic asylum we call Earth who was nailed to a wooden cross by a bunch of other inmates. With him still conscious, they hammered spikes through his wrists and insteps, and into the wood. Then they set the cross upright, so he dangled up there where even the shortest person in the crowd could see him writhing this way and that.

Can you imagine people doing such a thing to a person?

No problem. That’s entertainment. Ask the devout Roman Catholic Mel Gibson, who, as an act of piety, has just made a fortune with a movie about how Jesus was tortured. Never mind what Jesus said.

During the reign of King Henry the Eighth, founder of the Church of England, he had a counterfeiter boiled alive in public. Show biz again.

Mel Gibson’s next movie should be The Counterfeiter. Box office records will again be broken.

One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us.

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And what did the great British historian Edward Gibbon, 1737-1794 A.D., have to say about the human record so far? He said, “History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind.”

The same can be said about this morning’s edition of the New York Times.

The French-Algerian writer Albert Camus, who won a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957, wrote, “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.”

So there’s another barrel of laughs from literature. Camus died in an automobile accident. His dates? 1913-1960 A.D.

Listen. All great literature is about what a bummer it is to be a human being: Moby Dick, Huckleberry Finn, The Red Badge of Courage, the Iliad and the Odyssey, Crime and Punishment, the Bible and The Charge of the Light Brigade.

But I have to say this in defense of humankind: No matter in what era in history, including the Garden of Eden, everybody just got there. And, except for the Garden of Eden, there were already all these crazy games going on, which could make you act crazy, even if you weren’t crazy to begin with. Some of the games that were already going on when you got here were love and hate, liberalism and conservatism, automobiles and credit cards, golf and girls’ basketball.

Even crazier than golf, though, is modern American politics, where, thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative.

Actually, this same sort of thing happened to the people of England generations ago, and Sir William Gilbert, of the radical team of Gilbert and Sullivan, wrote these words for a song about it back then:

I often think it’s comical

How nature always does contrive

That every boy and every gal

That’s born into the world alive

Is either a little Liberal

Or else a little Conservative.

Which one are you in this country? It’s practically a law of life that you have to be one or the other? If you aren’t one or the other, you might as well be a doughnut.

If some of you still haven’t decided, I’ll make it easy for you.

If you want to take my guns away from me, and you’re all for murdering fetuses, and love it when homosexuals marry each other, and want to give them kitchen appliances at their showers, and you’re for the poor, you’re a liberal.

If you are against those perversions and for the rich, you’re a conservative.

What could be simpler?

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My government’s got a war on drugs. But get this: The two most widely abused and addictive and destructive of all substances are both perfectly legal.

One, of course, is ethyl alcohol. And President George W. Bush, no less, and by his own admission, was smashed or tiddley-poo or four sheets to the wind a good deal of the time from when he was 16 until he was 41. When he was 41, he says, Jesus appeared to him and made him knock off the sauce, stop gargling nose paint.

Other drunks have seen pink elephants.

And do you know why I think he is so pissed off at Arabs? They invented algebra. Arabs also invented the numbers we use, including a symbol for nothing, which nobody else had ever had before. You think Arabs are dumb? Try doing long division with Roman numerals.

We’re spreading democracy, are we? Same way European explorers brought Christianity to the Indians, what we now call “Native Americans.”

How ungrateful they were! How ungrateful are the people of Baghdad today.

So let’s give another big tax cut to the super-rich. That’ll teach bin Laden a lesson he won’t soon forget. Hail to the Chief.

That chief and his cohorts have as little to do with Democracy as the Europeans had to do with Christianity. We the people have absolutely no say in whatever they choose to do next. In case you haven’t noticed, they’ve already cleaned out the treasury, passing it out to pals in the war and national security rackets, leaving your generation and the next one with a perfectly enormous debt that you’ll be asked to repay.

Nobody let out a peep when they did that to you, because they have disconnected every burglar alarm in the Constitution: The House, the Senate, the Supreme Court, the FBI, the free press (which, having been embedded, has forsaken the First Amendment) and We the People.

About my own history of foreign substance abuse. I’ve been a coward about heroin and cocaine and LSD and so on, afraid they might put me over the edge. I did smoke a joint of marijuana one time with Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead, just to be sociable. It didn’t seem to do anything to me, one way or the other, so I never did it again. And by the grace of God, or whatever, I am not an alcoholic, largely a matter of genes. I take a couple of drinks now and then, and will do it again tonight. But two is my limit. No problem.

I am of course notoriously hooked on cigarettes. I keep hoping the things will kill me. A fire at one end and a fool at the other.

But I’ll tell you one thing: I once had a high that not even crack cocaine could match. That was when I got my first driver’s license! Look out, world, here comes Kurt Vonnegut.

And my car back then, a Studebaker, as I recall, was powered, as are almost all means of transportation and other machinery today, and electric power plants and furnaces, by the most abused and addictive and destructive drugs of all: fossil fuels.

When you got here, even when I got here, the industrialized world was already hopelessly hooked on fossil fuels, and very soon now there won’t be any more of those. Cold turkey.

Can I tell you the truth? I mean this isn’t like TV news, is it?

Here’s what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey.

And like so many addicts about to face cold turkey, our leaders are now committing violent crimes to get what little is left of what we’re hooked on.

One day Imaginary Keith’s friend, Big Charlie, began taunting him about work.  Really just friendly banter, as friends are prone to do on occasion.

“We don’t all have it so easy, you know.  Not all of us can move a few rocks around, call it poetry, and get paid for doing it.”

“It’s not quite so simple.” Imaginary Keith replied.  “Being a gardener is hard work,” and then added something clever, like, “Decorating with boulders is an exacting art.”

Big Charlie scoffed.

So Imaginary Keith, armed with the knowledge that Big Charlie was a religious man, struck back with a dangerous, but awkward and unwieldy weapon - a Bible story.  He gripped the unfamiliar object firmly with both hands and jabbed it at Big Charlie’s chest.

“I can’t believe you’re scoffing,” he said.  “Perhaps you’ve forgotten the story of Jesus.”

“What?” Of course Big Charlie hadn’t forgotten about Jesus.  But nothing intrigues a religious man more then a Jesus story.  Nothing gets a religious man panting for breath quite like telling him that he’s forgotten about Jesus.  Imaginary Keith spun the Bible story in his hands, wild west fashion, hoping he looked calm and efficient.

“Well, I don’t know a whole lot about Jesus, but I do know one thing.”

“And what would that be?” Big Charlie asked.

“What I do know is that when Jesus rose again, and had not yet ascended, that devout and faithful Mary was out looking for him.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Well, everyone knows that she found him soon enough, but what everyone seems to have forgotten is that she didn’t recognize him because he wasn’t quite in his earthly form.”

“I know that.”

“Yes, but what you don’t quite seem to know is that Mary, seeing Jesus standing there in all his glory, mistook him . . . are you sure you want to know this.”

“What?”

“Mary mistook Jesus, of all things, for the gardener.”

“I knew that.  There’s nothing new about that.  Don’t try telling me that just because you’re a . . . “

“Hold on a second.  Have you ever given any thought about the first thing Jesus did when he was resurrected.  I mean the very first thing.”

“Huh.”

“Well, the very first thing Jesus did when he came back to life was move around a giant stone.  Just like me.” Big Charlie’s mouth is drooping a bit, like a kid witnessing his first Sunday School lesson.  The one where the devil is cut out of red felt and the angels are cut out of white.  And the teacher keeps jumping the red devil around the felt board, and every eye follows every move while the white felt angels make their countermoves until it all stops and the Sunday School teacher suddenly scares the hell out of the kids by imitating a big, booming voice of God.

Well, maybe his mouth isn’t drooping that much.  Imaginary Keith is no Sunday school teacher.

“It’s important work, Big Charlie.  It’s obvious.  You of all people should know that.”

“I don’t think . . . “

“He may have even stopped and done a little weeding before getting back to business.  That’d be just like Jesus, to lend a hand with the weeding.  But don’t quote me on that one.  I’m only guessing.”

In a couple of hours I head south to stare at the Applegate River and count quacking ducks.  Or maybe I’ll slip into the water and let turtles sun themselves on my belly as we all float lazily towards the Pacific.  The weather promises to be warm and sunny, so maybe I’ll stretch out and tan my toes, or drink a beer for lunch, or just sit and think of nothing and watch clouds in the reflection of the water.

Where I’ll be the internet is still hand delivered once a week on 3 1/2” floppy disks, dropped off right at your door by a middle-aged man driving an old Ford Pinto wagon.  It’s really cutting edge technology for an area whose chief economic indicator is a complicated but delicate mathematical ratio, arrived at by comparing the numbers of rusted, non-operational pre-1980’s cars sitting in front yards as opposed to back yards.  Other factors, besides the base ratio, are also considered, such as whether a car is on blocks or is hidden beneath a blackberry bramble.  Old rusted cars serving as dog houses are considered functional, and are therefore not factored into the equation.

I talked once to the disk delivery man and asked him what he thought.  He said things were looking good.  Whatever that means.

My point is that I will disappear for a couple of days.  I will return refreshed and full of words.  I may or may not have tan toes and new turtle friends, and I will watch for the floppy disk delivery man on Saturday, just to see if he has anything for me.

Is everyone aware of the Three Days And Then Monday rule?  This rule basically states that should three days of rest and relaxation immediately precede a working Monday, certain latitudes are allowed in order to help one make it through the day.  The rule is fairly complex, and would require a rather lengthy explanation to fully explain.  As a matter of fact, even making such an attempt this morning would, for me, break the Three Days And Then Monday rule.  One area of the rule clearly states that I am allowed to skip any and all lengthy explanations for the duration of the day.

I’m almost positive that everyone is familiar with this rule in one form or another already.  Cultural variations, I know, do exist, and as far as I know, the rule is in effect in every country except China.  It’s the price they pay for supplying the rest of the world with just about everything.

I can’t wait to begin the story of my toe tanning adventure.  I spoke with the disk delivery man not once, but twice!  I bought candy in the Wilderville Country Store, where the century old wooden floor is worn so thin and smooth you are forced to shuffle along in the footsteps of pioneers long since dead!  I had dinner with a beautiful midget!  I caught the waitress sneaking peeks in my direction!  I realized that somehow, in some places, size does matter!  I discovered the positive side of Alzheimer’s, reaping the benefits of a grandmother’s failing memory as she prepared me one sandwich after another!  If I smile right now I’m afraid bread crusts will still fall out of my mouth.

And there is still the 100 pound baby to deal with.  We can’t forget about him.  He’ll need to be changed into a fresh chapter sometime soon.

And on top of all that I need to buy a plane ticket.  I’m going on a trip!  After more then twenty five years, my clan is having a family reunion.  For now, imagine a gathering of thin-blooded Vikings huddled around a barbecue pit comparing stories of fierce battles fought against that bitter and ruthless enemy, alcohol.  Some will lift a mug to those who fell and some will attempt to convert the entire clan to Christianity.  The dead will come charging from the woods, or Valhalla, or the Malmo Bay bait shop (I’m not quite sure which) and join us for a day of fighting and festivities.  A clan of carpenters and mechanics, railroad men and strong farm women who knew how to overhaul a car.  An occasional lawyer.  A school teacher or two.  We will all gather around and eat hot dogs and talk about the glorious days.

But right now it’s Monday morning, and I’m seriously close to breaking the Three Days And Then Monday rule.  I need to work a bit so I don’t have to stowaway in the luggage compartment of an eastbound 737.  For a Monday morning, I feel an unusual amount of determination coursing through my veins.  It tingles.

In his dream Imaginary Keith steps between some bullies who are picking on some sort of handicapped kid.  The kid talks slow and has an arm so badly misshapen that it could only happen in a dream.  The kid’s arm looks more like a catapult then a human limb, but in a non-functional sort of way.  As I sit on the edge of the bed, watching Imaginary Keith dream, I can’t help but think.  Nature can be cruel, but imagination always plays trump.  Imaginary Keith, in his dream imagination, has cut the poor kid no slack.

I watch Imaginary Keith square up, ready for a fight, telling the boys to back down.  But emotions are high and the bullies don’t back down, and soon Imaginary Keith is being pounded.  The kid with the catapult arm has slipped away somewhere, but the pounding continues.  Imaginary Keith, champion of the small and weak, is really getting walloped.

At first, I find myself thinking that it’s a shame that we can’t be safe in our own dreams.  A real shame that our days insist on following us into our nights.  Wouldn’t it be restful, I think, if our actions during the day were completely separate from our actions at night?  Wouldn’t it be easier if our minds were split in two - the day mind not knowing of the night mind, and vice versa?  Wouldn’t that be better?

But then, as I watched the bullies continue to pound on poor Imaginary Keith, I couldn’t help but wonder what it is that the president dreams about.  What happens to George at night?  Does his day follow him into the night, or has he somehow figured out a way to separate the two?  Which side of the pounding is he on when he dreams?

No, two separate minds wouldn’t be restful at all.  It’d be too much like looking the other way, which never, ever works.  I’ve tried it, but something always slips in.  No, we need our days to follow us into the nights.  We need to face ourselves.  We need to toss and turn and wake up sweating, desperate for a way to change. 

Ironically, I don’t think we’ll ever sleep until we somehow wake up.

I am that mouse on the outside of the wheel, being spun around and around by the other mice on the inside of the wheel.  After two revolutions, I realize I don’t know how I got onto the wheel in the first place.  After three spins, it is hard to imagine life any other way.

Where I live, the earth spins roughly 800 miles per hour.  But I’ve gotten used to it.  I hardly ever think of it at all.

Hints of Imaginary Keith’s dream were still on his face as he slowly ate a bowl of oatmeal this morning.  Hints of being a prisoner of war and watching people die slowly from dysentery, starvation, and neglect as they all think of an impossible escape.  Hints of his job in the prison camp, which was to toss one book after another up to another prisoner on a high platform, who would then turn and toss the book back down into a big fire, kept alive by the unending supply of books.  In Imaginary Keith’s eyes, I can see the part of the dream where he risks his life to hide a dictionary, so that he has something to read later, when his shift is over.  I see in his eyes the pain as the prison guard finds the book and rips off the cover, throws it in the fire, and then hands the book back to Imaginary Keith.

It’s sort of hard to imagine, but if you can picture Borders being turned into a gulag you’re halfway there.

In the end, none of it matters, as both prisoners and guards see that they have been labeled expendable - a large bomb, as big as a truck, is seen sitting next to the burning pile of books.  No one knows where it has come from or how it got there, but everyone in the dream knows exactly who it was that put it there.

The timer on the bomb is ticking down, and at first glance, shows just under three minutes until detonation.  There is no where to run.  Even if the prisoners had the strength, there is no time to get far enough away.  In Imaginary Keith’s eyes, I can see the part of the dream where he runs his hand over the dictionary, feeling for the missing cover.  I can see him focus in on the book, blocking out the madness all around him, until he collapses to the ground.  And then I see him open the book, and watch as his finger slowly moves down the page, searching for a word he doesn’t even know he is looking for.

Just under the surface of my son lies a pool of something that is not always calm.  He’s an intelligent hothead.  The kind of person who either rises to greatness or falls hard by his own undoing.  Maybe this is just the way of eight year olds, I don’t know.  What I do know is that you could see this same thing flair up in his eyes a long time ago.  Back then we called it his Agressive Face, and if you knew what to look for, you could cut off just about 90% of the mischief.  But as he’s grown older, the Agressive Face isn’t as easy to read.  And let’s face it, it’s just not as cute at eight as it was at, say, two or three.

So I’ve just come from school, where a meeting took place in an attempt to narrow the boy’s path of righteousness.  It seems he has been taking up more then his fair share of the playground the last couple of days.  Someone was pushed.  Bark dust was flying.  Accusations and a bumped head.  If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that George Foreman was out on the playground, looking for new sparring partners to help stage another boxing comeback.  George Foreman, the man who is, according to tabloid headlines, The Happiest Man on Earth.

But I know it’s not George Foreman out there on the playground causing trouble.  It’s my son.  And all this time I thought they were just preparing for third grade.  Or maybe pushing and shoving is proper preparation these days.  My son does have a fascination with presidents.  Maybe this newfound aggressiveness is just his attempt to enter mainstream politics as a budding young imperialistic Republican.  I’m not sure what it is kids preparing for third grade think about.  It’s been so long since I was in third grade that I remember hardly anything.  I sat between a red-headed Irish boy named Shane and a girl with long blond hair and a harelip named Mary.  The girl’s name was Mary, not the harelip.  I hardly have time this morning to worry much about dangling modifiers.  I also remember that I wrote a very long story about an old brown shoe, which was, of course, inspired by the Beatles.  Later on I would imitate George Harrison in a talent show.  But that’s a fourth grade story, which won’t surface properly for at least two years.

But back to my child rearing tale before I am completely derailed.

Let’s hope I’ve diffused the playground bomb.  Hmmm.  This sounds a lot like a dream I recently observed. I am not naive enough to think that the timer has been turned off completely.  The fuse of any boy is apt to re-ignite at any given moment.  I’m not sure if it’s hormones that cause all of the trouble, or the fact that when a boy looks down at his feet he can actually see them growing.  It happens that fast.  If you think about it, that’s enough to piss anyone off.

Now it is back to work.  More bids and phone calls.  Lining up the work to keep my small crew of smiling men busy for the ten days I am gone.  It’s not easy to arrange a day schedule that keeps a crew of non-English speaking laborers in complete harmony with a collection of English-only speaking customers.  It’s a lot like watching your feet grow.

But so far so good.  It’s 11:00 a.m. and I haven’t pushed anyone down all morning.  But I did bump my head and go three rounds with Big George Foreman.  But I lucked out.  It was George the Preacher who knocked me around, not George the Fighter.  Still, both punch pretty hard.  But we’ve worked out our differences and will be grilling up burgers later this afternoon.

Tonight’s fortune cookie: Don’t lose sight of your goals.

Does this mean the short term house cleaning goal?  A vacuum in my hand?  Toys and dishes and clothes all tucked into place?  Or can a cookie have its mind on something loftier and more distant?  Something you close your eyes to see?  That thing that settles softly into every synaptic cleft, dancing to an infinite supply of electrical impulses.  That thing that is forever rising, forever falling.

I’ve been shopping again.  Hardly news for some, but front page headlines for me.  You might remember my struggle to pick out a few new clothes.  But with my ten day trip fast approaching, I have decided that it is time to purchase a digital camera.  Things such as aging family faces must be captured so they can be stared at in amazement in private.  And maybe I will decide to document the entire trip right here on Word Shadows.  It’ll be like a miniature episode of One The Road with Charles Kuralt, only without the knowing voice or big RV lumbering along until it bumps into something interesting.  But who knows, maybe I’ll bump into something like the World’s Largest Twine Ball. 

Not only do I have the navigational prowess to get there, but it lies almost directly in the path my friend Randy and I will be taking.  And the fact is, I’ve seen the big ball of twine many times, because I remember driving by it as a kid as my family headed north to visit family.  But we never stopped, which to this day seems more curious then the big ball itself.  Wasn’t my dad even the least bit curious?  I would think that a ball of twine that large would begin to exert some sort of gravitational field that would pull in even the most hurried father.  I know it pulled hard on me.  I would smash up against the side window as we drove by and then find myself hurled into the back window as we zipped by.  This was long before seatbelt laws.  A time when kids often flew all over the car.

I have no idea what the big hurry was.  All we did was drive non-stop up to the lake so we could stare at bobbers floating above a school of bluegills who never seemed hungry.  Seems to me we had plenty of time for a big ball of twine.

But now I’ll be behind the wheel.  Well, probably Randy, it’s his car.  But I’m sure there will be plenty of time to stop and look at all kinds of things along the road.  All worthy of comment.  All odd if caught in the right light.  The world is filled with oddities.  You just have to know how to look.

And the timing to shop for a new digital camera couldn’t be better.  Only yesterday I found myself being invited to participate in Jo Spanglemonkey’s latest creation, Ten:Ten - a blog dedicated to capturing a photograph from your life at precisely 10:10 a.m. each day.  Having not a bit of free time to even consider playing along, I immediately said yes.  It didn’t matter that I owned no digital camera.  It didn’t matter that I would have to keep track of time.  Minor details.  It reminded me of the time I talked my way into the pantry chef position even though I knew absolutely nothing about preparing salads and desserts for hundreds of hungry guests.  I think I spent the first hour of that job looking for the bill on my chef hat.

But I liked the idea of Ten:Ten, so I joined the club.  Besides, free lifetime membership and my wheels rotated free every 3000 miles.  Or was that a complimentary water bottle and a mint on my pillow every night.  Or maybe it was guaranteed access, the wheels deal, and a mint.  Oh, I don’t remember.  I never pay very good attention.

Besides, it’s 10:10!  I have important work to do.

Update: Thanks to Gina Smith and Reuters, who bring to light that a new nude roller coaster ride record has been set (did we even know there was a record?), I have realized that my upcoming trip might very well find itself written into the record books.

Is there a world record for nude men staring at the world’s largest ball of twine?  Could Randy and I set the standard?  Who will snap the photograph?  Will the mayor hand over the key to the city?  Does Darwin, Minnesota even have a key?

So many questions come to mind when one thinks about getting nude in public.

Setting the nude roller coaster record took less then two minutes.  I’m sure Randy and I could stand there for much longer then that.  Maybe we could arrange for a few fake Keystone cops to chase us around the giant twine ball and the whole thing would make for great slapstick entertainment.  Or maybe a political statement.  Something about two nude midwestern boys finding an ancient weapon of mass destruction right here in the heartland of America.  A short film filled with eye-opening discussion and humorous chase scenes.  Are the boys heroes or villians?  Which side of the agenda do they scamper around on?

I can’t wait for my trip to begin.

I really could go for a re-invented calendar.  Something that doesn’t play up to the lowest common denominator of human thinking.  Something a bit less repetitive.  I mean, the same day repeating itself every seven days?  I don’t know about you, but it kind of bores the hell out of me.  Monday again?  Tuesday again?  Wednesday again?  You get the point.  I wonder if they knew they were throwing us into such a rut when they invented that thing.  I’m thinking about rewriting Genesis for the Bible so that things can be stretched out a bit.  Why be cast in the image of a god who’s such an overachiever?  Slow down why don’t you?  Enjoy a little bit of that creating.  I think you might imagine a little bit of how it would go.

1. In the beginning God created the heavens.

2. And although he hadn’t created lightness and darkness yet, he decided to call it a day.

3. On the second day he created the earth, but it was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of god was moving over the face of the water; and it was hard work and getting late and felt like enough for the thing now known as a day.

4. On the third day god created light.

5. And god saw that the light was good, but since he hadn’t invented sunglasses yet it was hard to adjust to the new brightness.  Just about one day.

6. On the fourth day god separated the light from the darkness.  God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night, which pretty much took care of the leftover work he’d had from day one.

And on and on until . . .

11,245,368,532.  And on the 11,245,368,532 day, god created stick deodorant, thinking perhaps it would relieve tensions between several other of his creations.  Dogs shook their heads sadly, but men wondered if it would be available in different odors.

11,245,368,533. And on the 11,245,368,533 day, god created the Wal-Mart prices are dropping campaign, even though he knew it was just a twist on the Lucifer fall from heaven story.  Good stories should be retold, he thought to himself.  But what is Wal-Mart? the Spirit of God asked.  Oh, I haven’t created that yet God replied.  I haven’t even created the hyphen.  Don’t get ahead of me.

On second thought, maybe I don’t have time to rewrite Genesis in it’s entirety.  I need to get busy.  I have travel plans to arrange.  Only eight days, you know, before I begin my midwestern travels.  My hope is that I will discover an unknown branch of the Mississippi River.  I will photograph it with my new digital camera (still to be purchased) and then skinny-dip in the cold waters.  I will write about it when my hands stop shaking, and then proceed further north, where the large gathering of family huddle around a haphazard assortment of folding chairs, praising each other for their ability to breed children.  I can’t wait to see if all of the children look identical.  I can already imagine their strong brows and piercing blue eyes sitting just above their big, full beards.  The girls’ eyes will sparkle and dance, and the boys will all look steady and true.

The weekend began by hunting down divorce papers for my dad, then FedExed to him in Costa Rica for a whopping $62.00.  Required paperwork if passports are ever to be obtained for my new step-mother and step-brothers.  No matter how much time goes by, I am still left with the idea that I have a mother who is younger then me.  And we’re supposed to believe a person can’t go back in time.  Something fishy going on here, but I have no proof of it yet.  I still haven’t seen any pictures.  Life in our family is very secret.  We’re a den of international spies, doing our best to sneak peeks at ourselves.  Espionage with no ambition.

But we’re a fertile bunch.

The day begin with a frightening dream that my son had been lost.  The two of us were traveling, when suddenly the house we were in needed to be evacuated.  An alarm was ringing and everyone was scrambling.  I found his suitcase, stuffed with four pillows and a laptop, but he was nowhere to be seen.  The house was empty, and all I could do was go outside and wait by the car, hoping that he was with friends, somewhere safe.  I woke up with a very bad feeling.

When I am gone, my son wants to know if he can come over some times.  He has his own key.

“Just make sure you lock the door when you leave, “ I say.  “We wouldn’t want any hobos walking into the place.”

This, of course, disintegrated into a conversation about just how many hobos would actually fit into the apartment.  At roughly 1200 square feet, we both guessed at least 1000 hobos.

“That’s a lot of hobos,” I say.

“They’d be packed in pretty tight,” my son says.

“I’m thinking tempers might flare,” I say.

“Yea,” my son replies.  “But no one could fight because their arms would be pinned down to their sides.

“You’re right,” I say.  It’s an easy thing to visualize.

So in the end we decide that while a handful of hobos are dangerous, a thousand or so wouldn’t cause as much trouble as one would expect.

I am now the proud owner of a Nikon Coolpix 3700.  Prepare to suffer my enthusiasm, as I snap away at everything that either moves or holds still.  It was getting late last night before the battery was charged and I headed out the door.  The buttons were unfamiliar, but the park is very close, it’s paths always inviting.

The camera passed it’s first test with flying colors.  The lighting along the path was dim at best.  My new camera sees better then I do, I think.

I am now geared up to enter the exciting world of Ten:Ten.

Yes!  It’s official.  Thanks to my brief mention of nude roller coaster riding the other day, more visitors showed up at my doorstep then ever before.  My front yard was literally filled with gawkers.  They milled around and waited.  Some tried to peek through the windows, while others picked the flowers.  One woman nursed a baby.  I saw a frisbee passing back and forth in front of the window, and even heard someone break out a guitar.

But I was just a link.  A mere path along the way.  Didn’t they know this?  Obviously not.  They kept arriving until I suddenly realized that I was beginning to feel a pressure building.  I didn’t know what it was at first, but then it hit me - it was the pressure to entertain!  I felt like a host and they were my guests. 

I almost thought I should break something special out.  But I wasn’t quite sure what would keep a yard full of people entertained.  It’s not like I could break out the barbecue and grill up some hamburgers.  No, this was a special crowd.  These were people who were desperately looking for a photograph of nude people on a roller coaster.  A finicky bunch.  I wondered if they knew that a ladybug, should one happen to crawl across their monitors, would be large enough to block out the “interesting bits” on at least three of the nude roller coaster people.  From what I saw, this photograph was about as entertaining as watching Lilliputian sumo wrestling.  No, I take that back.  It wasn’t nearly that entertaining.

But then I thought of something.  Something that might just work.  What about my account of the historic erection contest?  Would that work?  I couldn’t be sure, considering the mixed group and all, but what did I have to lose?  Everyone, I thought (remember, I was under a tremendous pressure), likes a good erection story.

It’s a good thing the sun sometimes sets before poor ideas find their way into the light.

Sometime early this morning the nude roller coaster craze began to dwindle.  The crowds slowly thinned.  One by one they turned and headed off in search of god only knows what.  Well, you know.  You see them there in your stat counters.  You know.  And I’m glad they’re gone.  I’m glad they packed up their frisbees and busy eyes and nursing babies before I made a complete fool of myself.  This morning I realized that things could have gone terribly wrong.  The crowd might have very well seen through my story, grown frustrated and angry with my presumption, and become an unruly, fearsome mob.  They may have stormed the place.  Let’s face it, they were here to witness something real, not listen to me read a fictional account of an erection contest that never actually took place.  What was I thinking?

I sure dodged a bullet on that one.

I think sometime long ago I might have seen a man get killed.  I don’t remember when it was, or how it happened, but I do remember the look in the man’s eyes, a wild, darting motion that seemed to say this can’t be happening. 

I faintly remember watching as the man’s disbelief spilled out into the air and floated close and thick like fog, hovering around our heads until every last bit had been sucked down into our lungs.  It was only then that everything was quiet and we were able to turn and walk away.

Some time back I made up my mind that I would collect the stories all of the stories that I could from my relatives.  The stories could be about anything, but would have a common thread woven into them.  They would all, somehow, be reflections of my grandpa, dead now for several years.  I imagined everyone doing their best to help put together a collection of memories that we could all share, so that we, and our children who never knew the man, would have an easier time remembering.

I haven’t thought much about that idea for quite awhile now.  It’s an idea that I soon discovered would take an incredible amount of energy to complete.  Stories, I was soon reminded, don’t just roll out of people, no matter how much they love or despise someone.  They need coaxing and constant guidance.  They need to be poked and prodded with just enough force that they tell what they know without turning on you.  They need constant encouragement.

It is unfortunate that this idea came to me just as my marriage took a nose dive.  The separation, and then the months and now years that have led to an eventual divorce, have done nothing but drain my energy.  The strength required to extract history from distant relatives was desperately needed to simply make it through my day.  So my idea, no matter how good or bad it might be, has sat dormant.  It has remained nothing more then an idea.

With the family reunion in Minnesota less then two weeks away, I can’t help but think about this idea again.  I’m wondering if anyone will bring it up, or even if they remember it.  And if they do remember, would they rather forget?  While a few individuals showed enthusiasm, most said or wrote nothing about how they felt about such a project.

And just a couple of weeks ago another relative died.  The woman who was the most enthusiastic of all about such an idea, an aunt who I believe was probably one of those pivotal individuals that all families contain.  The kind of person that the others depend on to be the link.  My grandma was one of these, and when she died, my aunt just naturally stepped into the role.  If you needed to know something, she was the one you called.  If the family was to gather, it would most likely be around her.

So what will happen when we all meet at her home, now that she is gone?  Who will be the new center?  Or will there even be one?  Will our family simply scatter, now that one of it’s center strengths has gone?

Update: The general feeling I am getting from people, both in comments and email, is that this is a good idea.  For no real reason at all (who needs reasons), I’ve added to this post the original letter that was sent out to both friends and family.

Some days I can still hear the sound of his voice as he sang bits and pieces of a song.  The words play themselves over and over in my mind and seem like they will live forever in my memory.  The last time I heard him sing the words he must have been nearly ninety, and the gruffness of his voice is more clear to me now then the words themselves.  Other days it’s the smile on his weathered face as he skunked me at cribbage, or the image of his hands touching my cards as he quickly counted the 15-2’s for me, impatient with my slowness.  And then there are the days where all I can see is the sternness of his face staring out at me from the black and white portrait sitting on my desk.  I wonder what he was thinking as he sat there waiting for the click of the camera.  I wonder what it was like to know him then, long before I was even born.  And it is on these days especially, staring back at his picture, that I realize I need to know more.  I need to hear more about the man who I can never talk to again.  I miss Simon E, my grandpa, and that is why I am writing to all of you.

Take care and hope to talk with everyone soon.

Imaginary Keith is no man’s man when it comes to the dentist.  His theory has always been run.  Run fast and run hard.  Don’t let them catch you.  Run until you’re out of breath.  Whatever you do, don’t stop running.

But Imaginary Keith has put on a few pounds these last few months and isn’t quite as quick on his feet as he used to be.  And he was no speed demon to begin with, so his running theory doesn’t hold much wind.  Imaginary Keith doesn’t hold much wind.

But like I said, he’s no man’s man when it comes to the dentist.  So the least I can do is provide excellent around the clock care for him until the Novocain wears off.  And with strict instructions from the dentist not to do any chewing for a minimum of four hours, he will need to be watched like a hawk.  So like I always do for my friend, I have called in a team of nurses whose sole job is to see to it that Imaginary Keith is kept comfortable and hydrated while he recuperates. 

That’s Agnus on the left.  She’s the one with the demure smile and holding the fan.  Next to her is Ruth Ellen, seen here reaching for Imaginary Keith’s pulse or something.  And then there is Ruth Ellen’s sister, Birdie, who specializes mostly in pillow fluffing.  I’m not sure she’s a real nurse, but she comes with the team so I don’t say anything.  Finally, the woman who you see preparing to rub a little ointment onto Imaginary Keith’s numb lips is head nurse Esther Olsen.  Esther says very little, and rules the roost with a firm but gentle Norwegian hand.

I usually like to keep my eye on Agnus.  Her enthusiasm for Imaginary Keith is at times almost uncomfortable.  I can’t actually say that she’s ever acted unprofessionally, but then Esther has never left her and Imaginary Keith alone in the same room.  If you ask me, I think it’s for the best.

Someday I will tell you all about my good friend, Headless Lawn Man.  I will tell you everything.  I will tell you about how we came to be friends and about the places we have traveled to together.  Headless Lawn Man loves to travel, and is very excited about our upcoming trip.  It’ll be his first trip to both Arkansas and Minnesota, and he can hardly wait.

Headless Lawn Man is an excellent traveling companion.  He always packs light, seldom taking with him more then one bag.  He has a large, stong bladder and isn’t picky about when or where we eat or sleep.  He doesn’t complain or whine or even think about slowing me down.  Not once.  This alone is a giant plus in his favor.  You’d be amazed how easily he passes through security.

But right now isn’t the time for stories.  With only four days left until we leave, there is much to be done.  We’re pounding our way through the accounting and arranging work schedules.  He’s paying bills and I’m completing bids.  As odd as it sounds, he has quite a head on his shoulders when it comes to money.  He assures me that everything is fine. 

Stop thinking so much, he’ll say.  Relax.  Take a load off.

I’m not quite sure if he is referring to my head or what.

Only days away from the world’s largest ball of twine.

The man tumbled down the hill, rolling and bumping into clumps of grass and small shrubs and stones.  His arms and legs flopped loose like a rag doll’s, his hands opening and closing on one emptiness after another.  Where it was grassy it wasn’t so bad.  Softer and more quiet.  In the grass he would almost begin to think that he would stop rolling.  He would almost begin to think that it was only a small hill and not a small mountain.  He would almost begin to think it’s just like being a child, rolling across the lawn .

But then the ground breaks and the grass gives way to something steeper and looser.  There is no time to think.  The ground, now patches of gravel and stone, make his time in the grass feel like a dream.  His skin rips and tears, and his blood reaches out like hands, clenching and grabbing at the dirt and dust and rock for a handhold.  His eyes begin to swell shut as his arms, broken and useless, slap along at nothing.

But from a distance, the man’s tumble may look very different.  Someone may very well look up and think it is a young boy having some fun, turning somersaults down a gentle slope on a warm summer afternoon.  Someone looking up and seeing the shape rolling down the hill would probably smile and imagine something pleasant from their own memories.  They would probably think something like, What a lucky boy, turning such slow somersaults down such a fine hill. They might even turn to whoever they are with and point up the hill, saying something like, Look how smooth it looks up there.  Wouldn’t that be fun?

Dear Ann,

It seems you have found your way to an old article of mine from last March which dealt with the mysterious Sphinx cat.  First off, let me thank you for taking the time to not only stop by, but ask a direct and very clear question.  Thank you.

Let me take a moment to answer your question.  No, I do not have any female Sphinx kittens for sale at this time, nor do I know where you might be able to find such a beautiful, hairless, creature.  While I do enjoy cats, I can’t actually claim to be a cat fancier.  My own cat goes by the name Barn Cat, because, you see, he lives in the barn.  A true cat fancier would never name their cat based solely on where their cat spends most of its time.  I imagine if I had a Sphinx cat, either male or female, I would end up naming it Sweater Cat, because surely a cat with no hair spends much of it’s life wrapped up tightly in a sweater.

But it is easy to understand how I might be mistaken for a cat fancier, given the fact that I was comparing men to Sphinx cats.  That, I would agree, seems like a leap that only a true cat lover would take.  I’m not sure why I wrote the article.  Maybe, just like you, I was moved by the grace and flow of the Sphinx.  There are just some things in life that are hard to look away from.

I can assure you, however, that should I become a cat fancier in the future, I will file all articles concerning the proper care and breeding of cats under a category suitably titled.  Something like Feline Friends or Cat Crap.  I promise you (and all other cat fanciers) that I would do a much better job of separating my posts, making sure that all serious cat-related articles never find their way into the Exaggeration category.  That would just be wrong.

Good luck, Ann, in your search for your new female Sphinx kitten.  I wish you all the success in the world.  I should confess that I’ve never actually even seen one, other then in pictures, so I’m guessing there aren’t any around here.  But like I always say, if someone has a picture of something, then it must be out there somewhere.

I’d write more, but I need to get back to my friend.  He’s sick in bed, but being well-tended by a very nice group of nurses.