April 16, 2012

  • Let No Man Put Asunder

     

    In the beginning was the earth.
    And it was beautiful.
    And Man lived upon the earth.
    And Man said: “Let us build skyscrapers, dams, factories and express ways.”
    And Man said:
    “It is good.”

    On the second day, Man looked upon the clear blue waters of the earth.
    And Man said: “Let us dump our sewage and waste into the waters.”
    And Man did.
    The waters became dark and murky.
    And Man said:
    “It is good.”

    On the third day, Man gazed at the forest of the earth.
    And they were tall and green.
    And Man said: “Let us cut the trees and build things for ourselves.”
    And Man did.
    And the forest grew thin.
    And Man said:
    “It is good.”

    On the fourth day, Man saw animals leaping in the fields
    and playing in the sun. And Man said:
    “Let us trap the animals for money
    and shoot them for sport.”
    And Man did.
    And the animals became scarce.
    And Man said:
    “It is good.”

    On the fifth day, Man felt the cool breeze in his nostrils.
    And Man said:  “Let us burn our refuse and let the wind blow away the smoke and debris.”
    And Man did. And the air became dense with smoke and carbon.
    And Man said:
    “It is good.”

    On the sixth day, Man saw many kinds of people on earth
    And Man feared and said: “Let us make bombs and missile sites in case misunderstanding arise.”
    And Man did. And missile sites and bomb dumps Checkered the landscape.
    And Man said:
    “It is good.”

    On the seventh day, Man perished.
    And the earth was quite and deathly still.
    For Man was no more.
    And it was good!

     

April 3, 2012

  • Good or Bad

     

        It never ceases to amaze me how nature attempts to protect our kids from us while they are growing up. They start off by being birthed with a completely different language. This is meant to give them a couple of years head start before we contaminate them with our gooder grammar.

        While still infants they use a natural defense mechanism of continual bowel release and dispersement which can be very effective on certain of our timid species. This is meant to keep us at arms lenght from them. Then there is the incessant crying which is meant to be a catalyst and unnerve many of us in the hope we might abandon them in the local pine preserve for the wolves to raise. This becomes a love and hate issue.

         If we survive their terrible “twos” and have resisted not eating them, then there occurs a few years of calm and serenity. It is during these years that our young children study us! They continuously ask questions and debate with us. They’re looking for flaws and weaknesses!

         Then they reach their teens and go rabid. They roam continually looking for things that are not there and blaming you for hiding whatever it is they can’t remember they lost. They become lost in their mirrors as they try to correct nature’s achievements with their own fashionable absurdities. They don’t like what they look like, who they are, who you are or even more confusing…..what they are! They are maturing.

         Through all their emotional and biological tirades, if we can but teach them one basic premise…..‘right from wrong‘…..then we have succeeded.

         Your greatest hope and success will be the day they finally walk out your front door to take on the world or just lay down on the sidewalk and wait for the SWAT team to show up.  image

     

February 21, 2012

  • My Cousin “Toad”

     

    I once had a cousin named Samuel Ribbling. We all called him “Toad”, because of an episode that happened when we were all 12. First off and most import, you need to know that my cousin Toad had the functioning intellect of chicken gravy. Somewhat lumpy and questionable to the content.

    The name christening occurred when six of us went skinny dipping at Norton pond where the street runoff emptied from Boulevard and Sykes Ave. We tossed our ragged jeans and assorted loco tee-shirts up under a pine tree and then plunged into the murky and tar scented water……it was great!

    After a while, our eyes got to burning and our hair became nappy from filtering all the sediment that floated in the pond. At this point, we got out and pulled on our duds. My cousin had to wear overalls to accommodate his large size. Aunt Teresa used to say that Toad was big boned and still toted some of his baby fat. Truth was, Toad was a lard ass that had to wear lard ass clothes. Wer’t no shame in it, it’s just the way it was. Anyway……Toad was getting dressed when he witnessed a fat amphibian leaping round the pond in pursuit of assorted insecti.

    Toad loved catching frogs, toads, lizards and unfanged snakes. He’d carry em round all day in his pockets and studied em till supper time and then set em free if they survived. Well, my cousin took off after this big toad and soon had him hostage in the back pocket of his overalls. His front pockets were full of pecans we had scooped up earlier on the side of the road.

    After we left the pond we trekked over to the old abandoned sugar mill where a dead dog was. We found it about three days earlier and wanted to see how much of it was left after the maggots took over…..nature’s morticians.

    After we poked it a few times, we finally headed back to my house and sat on the front porch and drank Kool-Aid. While we were sitting there and telling dirty jokes, I looked over at Toad and asked him to let us see his new toad. My cousin reached in his front pocket and froze with his eye’s bugging out like when your not sure bout a fart. He pulled out a handful of pecans and said, “Dang!” My cousin was Southern Baptist and careful bout cursing. We were silent for a sec and then finally realized that lard ass was sitting on the poor creature in his back pocket. We howled!

    “Let’s see it!” everbody started yelping. Seems a smashed toad was more interesting than just a regular hop around toad. Well, my cousin was upset cause he still had to wear those overalls for two more days fore my Aunt Teresa would suppose to wash em and toad guts could get bad after just a few hours. From that point on his name was ‘Toad’.

    The short of this story is, even years and children and grandchildren later, we still referred to him by his childhood nickname. Samuel James Ribbling passed away from cancer in 2006 at the age of 61. My aunt Teresa crossed the Jordon in 2009 at the age of 83. Three plots down from her grave was her son’s Samuel. During her funeral, a few of my old swimming hole buddies and I walked over to pay our respects to him. Laying next to his grave stone was a porcelain planter in the shape of a toad with the word ‘Grandpa’ hand painted on it’s back.

    I truly miss that old lard ass.

February 1, 2012

  • That Moment

      

     

                                  That Moment

     

    A respected member of Parliament sits agitated and endures a long speech from the opposition party…..

    An icon of the fashion world prepares for the world showing of her latest designs in Paris….

    A longshoreman sits back on a New York dock and takes a smoke, while the next freighter ties up to the pier….

    An exhausted Arabian prince waits for his private jet to be refueled….

    An Iowa farmer finishes a long week bringing in his corn crop before the rain comes in….

    A tired and overworked waitress in Germany pushes on to her 14th hour working tables during the Oktoberfest….

    The CEO of a manufacturing conglomerate rides his golf cart towards the 18th hole before calling it a day and joining his business partners for a drink….

    A high school coach finishes up his time tested speech on courage and commitment to his teenage football team….

    A grandma in Spain puts her infant ‘nieto’ to bed….

    A wise and venerated monk smiles as he scolds a novice disciple….

     

    All these people are dimensions apart in both place, philosophy, life style, history and creed. They are as different as the multitudes of celestial stars that twink and sputter over them all. No two are alike in any manner what-so-ever….except, for a particular event that will unite them all. More of a moment than an event. A moment that will deglaze all facets of their lives and leave them totally alone with only the ‘moment.’ In that moment, they will all be bonded together in an exclusive unity understood by few but experienced by most in the thread of life.

    That ‘moment’ will be the touch of mortality. It will be the stab of the first pain. That instance, when your chest becomes the focus of your entire existence. Nothing will comfort or assure you. The pain will remove you from the mental moment and at first it will surprise you and as the pain intensifies, it will scare you. You will try to reason with your superior intellect, but you will fail. You fall to your knees and try to think of your loved ones, where’s the phone and even denial. Time will be divided into seconds and those seconds into partial segments….each slowly passing as the pain intensifies. You’re weak, sweating, panting and even crying. You wait to die.

    You wake up in the hospital and your mind is useless. You can’t focus a thought and sounds run together. In time, you start to recognize someone next to you and you know they’re crying and it confuses you even more. Then you sleep.

    For a long time now, I have wanted to make some kind of attempt to describe a heart attack and each time I run it through my mind it varies in the vision of it and the intensities. Those few seconds become a major chapter in your life and in most cases it will dominate most all the others that construct your life. Days later, when the smoke clears and you realize you’re still alive, somehow you feel fragile and even violated. You now exist with a perpetual fear of every heartburn and sore chest muscle. You slow down and all those around you become your keepers, whether you like it or not.

    The epilog to all this is strange and I guess self defeating to some. It seems that when you survive an event, such as this…..you end up with an epiphany. You now know that you are venerable and breakable. You now hold your family closer, eat better, buy a dog and love your wife like she’s the hottest thing since Marilyn Monroe. And….there is one last thing you now do….you patiently wait for the next moment.

     

January 10, 2012

  • The Swing

     

     

                               THE SWING

     

    The old fella quietly sat on the old double swing that was on the old porch that surrounded the old house….their house. He fidgeted with a delegate handkerchief with the letter ‘D’ embroidered on it…..one of Della’s. He sat motionless…..not really thinking, just staring at the old hankie. It was the middle of October with slight morning chills and warm afternoons. It was the time of year Della loved most….they loved most.

    His two daughters were inside the house fixing something. Sandwiches or sliced ham or maybe one of Della’s good casseroles, he didn’t know for sure. The house was full of family and old friends reminiscing and sharing quiet conversations. The kids were all herded out to the large backyard with instructions to keep the noise down and to stay away from the large front porch. His youngest daughter stepped out on the old wooden porch and walked over and stood behind her father. He smiled to himself as she laid her slender hands on his shoulders. She lean down and kissed his balding head and as she did, he felt one of her tear drops. She squeezed his shoulders and then walked back into the house where she had grown up.

    He sat and stared out at the rose bushes Della had planted many years ago and remembered all the fragrant bouquets that always filled their home. Memories. Years of memories. Coming home from Vietnam and marrying his high school sweetheart. The long hair, acid, weed and the music! Wonderful music that fed on your emotions and took you on spectacular trips of color and vibrations. There was also the music of conscience…..Joan Baez, Hendrix, Peter, Paul and Mary and if you were high enough, weird Bob Dylan. The marches, sit-ins, love-ins and Della getting pregnant and him getting a job.

    The children…..watching them grow and learn and finally go off on their own until they needed Dad’s charity from time to time. Wonderful kids. Then one day, Della’s sitting on their swing holding their first grandchild, then soon the second and third and in time they’re running around the old porch on Sundays after church. Good memories. Warm October memories.

    He reaches up and loosens his tie. He slowly raises her hankie and smells the familiar scents and soon a tear finds it’s way down his cheek. He looks to his left, where she normally sat and then, after a few moments, he sees her. Not very clear, but it’s her. She sits in silence and looks at him with her devoted smile and wise eyes. “We did good, hon,“ he tells her in a dry rasping voice. “We did good.” Then, she was gone. He continues to stare for a few more moments and then finally closes his eyes and turns away. “We did good,” he whispers.

     

    We are given but one lifetime to accomplish good things and to leave a cherished legacy. After years of love and devotion, there can be no greater epitaph than, “We did good.”

    CHARLIE  

    closes

January 8, 2012

  • The Silent Mist

     

     

        You sit alone in your stalled car on a desolate country road. Long past midnight, a damp night mist begins to surround your vehicle. It’s becoming chilly and the darkness becomes oppressive and thick. There are no distant sounds and you find yourself in a strange shroud of absolute silence, except for the rapid pumping heart deep inside your chest.

     Silence. The cold and torturous solitude of your disabled car that now entombs you here in this desolate place on a forgotten dirt road. Silence. You strain to see through the crawling mist that now covers the road and blocks out all the stars. Silence.

     The hours pass, minute by agonizing minute. The dormant car battery denies you any light or comforting sound from the radio and you’ve abandoned all hope for a cell phone signal. The 21st century has abandoned you. You do gain some comfort from the minor light of your iPhone but soon that battery begins to diminish. You talk to yourself for a moment and then quickly stop as if you’re afraid of drawing attention to yourself from some unseen thing. You’re becoming terrified.

     You need to pee. Bad. You wait until the physical strain becomes unbearable and the fear of wetting yourself drives you to open the door. You take your keys out of the ignition and then look around the misty perimeter of your engulfed car before finally stepping out. After you relieve yourself next to the car you remember the powerful flashlight in the trunk. You turn and quickly close the car door and hurry to the rear of the car and begin to feel your way over the damp surface of the trunk until your fingers touch the lock. With fidgeting hands, you insert the key and spring open the trunk. You then lean over and feel your way around the dark interior until your hand finally brushes against the flashlight.

     You turn the device on and you’re overwhelmed by the satisfaction of the protective light that gushes out of it. You now slam down the trunk lid with a new sense of self preservation and start to walk back to the car door when you stop….the door is open! Silence. Yes, you did close the door. You remembered doing so. Now, what? You hold up the flashlight and direct the luminous bean at the car windows. The windows are steamed and covered with condensation from the dampness. You cannot see inside your car! You stand there frozen in silent confusion. The moments are tearing your mind to shreds! Then…..you slowly walk towards the open door as if it beckons you. All is silent.

    The rising sun begins to filter through the mass of trees that line the deserted road. The mist is now fading and morning shadows are falling across the dirt road. Discarded on the road, next to an abandoned car, is a flashlight that’s now bleeding the last of it’s candescent glow. All is silent.

     

December 29, 2011

  • My Top Ten New Years Resolutions….

     

     

    My Top Ten New Years Resolutions….

     

    1.…Don’t drink before sex.

    2.…Get used to not having sex.

    3.…Lose 50 pounds starting next November.

    4.…No more references to Wifey’s weight when she can hear.

    5.…No more dropping cats in the Goodwill bin after dark.

    6.…No more jokes about Wifey’s hair colorization and Guinness World Records.

    7.…No more dozing off in the McDonalds drive thru.

    8.…No more taking a leak in the backyard when I cut the grass.

    9.…Stop using terms like “dumb ass” and “donkey dicks” around the grandkids.

    10. Tell Wifey everyday that she is beautiful. 

     

     

     

December 24, 2011

  • How I’m Spending Christmas Eve….

     

     

     

    gold tree gifWell, it’s time to breakup the Elves coco break and get the sleigh packed. Coffee thermos, Vicks Rub, NoDoz, GPS, pocket full of gummy deers, four changes of Depends and finally my iPod with the entire collection of Bruce Springsteen tunes. With just a few moments before liftoff, the reindeer are wired and stoked on Red Bull. My shop foreman, Elf second class Snogwilly, comes running up to me with an additional bag of loot. He tells me these are the magical tree ornaments for all the special children this year plus a vial of Chickenpox virus for the others. I fill all my pockets with the magic ornaments and then toss the empty bag and vial of virus out in the snow. I take a dip of Copenhagen, blow my nose, tighten my seat belt and then I whistle and shout;

    “Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!

    On, Comet! on Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!

    To the top of the Artic! To the top of the world!

    Now dash away! dash away! get on the ball!”

    The spooked team of flyers took off like Wifey Claus’s relatives after Sunday dinner. I figured I’d run down south along the eastern seaboard slope of North America, cut down around the southern tip of Brazil and back up the western fringe of the Americas until I cruise into Alaska. Should take about 45 metric minutes and then I’ll cross the Beren Straits into Russia. I’ll then trek southward down the Asian continent avoiding North Korea because of a death in the family. The boys will keep pulling the sleigh until I do a fly-about around Australia and then west to the African continent and up into the Middle East where I’ll drop off a ton of coal and just bypass Iran and watch for missiles. I will then be into my eighth hour of deer wrangling and will take an extended hay stop in Italy where I’ll really be welcomed, being a saint and all.

    Soon enough, me and the sleigh haulers will be off and crossing Europe dodging snow fronts and socialism. The reindeer will relieve themselves over France before making our way across the English Channel into the British Isles. Then a stopover to fill the Queen’s stockings and then a few minutes to have Tea and Scones with a couple of the Coldstream Guards on Christmas eve duty. Then I’m bloody well off.

    Time has flown by now and with only a short time before the ‘Christmas sunrise’. We’ll leap from Iceland and spend a few precious minutes in Greenland so the boys can strut their antlers with some of the local does. But now the time has come for the finale of the trip…..Canada! I make my visits to all the isolated cabins and bars in Ontario till I finally come to the last child on my list. She had been scratched off several times with my ’naughty pencil’, but she always ends up redeeming herself with her love and unselfish caring for others.

    I crawl in through the basement window because she has a habit of keeping the friggin fireplace blazing all Christmas eve and I don’t want to roast my new Wolverine boots. Up the basement steps I sneak, down the hallway lined with graffiti and finally into the living room where a beautiful forest tree stands decorated and full of charm and holiday twinkle. I notice there’s no damn fire in the hearth this year. First, I look around for some fresh cookies and milk, but only find half a box of chocolate covered cherries….not even the good syrupy ones.

    I bend over and open my mostly deflated gift sack and a moment of panic runs over me. The little kitten I was bringing her this year was not there!! Then I remember….I had left it with the other cats in Beijing. Maybe next year. I did have the wind up Brad Pitt doll she wrote me about and the schnapps flavored Play-Doh. But there’s something else I need to leave but I’m getting too tired to focus. I step back and I’m trying to think outside the gift box for a moment and now I remember! Reaching into my side pocket I take out the special ornament and smile. I hang it on the tree and then give a short holiday blessing.

    I use the chimney this time to get out and once on top of the house, I realize I parked the damn sleigh on the ground next to the basement window. Laying my finger aside of my nose and giving a nod, I slipped off the roof and landed on top of Prancer.

    “I sprung to my sleigh, to my team gave a whistle,

    And away they all flew, like the down of a thistle:

    But I did exclaim, ere I drove out of sight

    Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night” 

     

     

December 23, 2011

  • What Is A Hug??

     

     

     

    Hug……vb; embrace affectionately: to put ones arms around somebody’s body and hold the person tight to show affection or pleasure. keep close to something: to remain in close linear proximity to something.

     We are strange creatures. Our needs are almost totally in sync with all the wild beast of this planet except for one flaw……we need hugs. I’m a robust, hairy jawed 300 pounder with the competitive appetite of a cluster of wildebeest and the beer thirst of a lost company of Legionnaires in the Moroccan dessert. I have needs! But, all that means nothing if I don’t get my daily hug from Wifey. Bonus days include hugs from the grandkids and maybe the Greek guy that lives next door, but that’s another matter. Hugs are important to all of us and I don’t care how callas and hard ass you are….we all need hugs. Even trolls, within limits.

     Some say it’s a mystical thing like maybe it’s our kindred spirits or even regurgitated Karmas that are bonding us at the moment of a hug. I think….maybe, it’s just simply the physical act of placing our hearts within a few inches of each other. Affection.

     The only times hugs are not truly validated is usually at family reunions when totally unknown cousins and old uncles with friendly hands give you courtesy hugs. The hugs you have to endure at church from over fumigated spinsters that smell like a pocket full of warm gummy bears. The Christmas day hug you get from your daughter’s current husband after you give him a new watch and he gives you a set of pie plates. The hug you get from the Greek guy next door, but that’s another blog. Good hugs and not so good hugs, but!…..never a bad hug. They don’t exist unless it’s from an eight hundred pound grizzly bear during the mating cycle.

     There are memorable hugs that you carry with you forever. With Wifey at the alter. The hugs of my children at bedtime. Hugs from those same children on their graduation. My daughter’s hug on her wedding day. Grandkid hugs on my birthday. Those long sad hugs with Wifey after our moms passed away.

     There is one last hug, which may well be the most important one. The hug you did not give. Your dear grandmother or funny old grand dad. The hug you wish you had given your mom or dad before it was too late. ……one last loving embrace. If only there had been one more chance.

     I am blessed to be married to a hugger. My day would be a shambles if I did not get one of her excellent hugs. Two, if I do the laundry. I am totally amazed at how important and precious that common act is at our age. The simple placing of our hearts together.

     

                                                                                                        Charlie

     

December 19, 2011

  • Christmas Shopping with Wifey….GAWD!!!!


     

                                                                   Christmas Shopping with Wifey

                           

     

       Wifey took me shopping with her yesterday. I was doing pretty good from my surgery back in November and my doctor, Abo Monorumbo-whatever-the-hell, said it would be good for me to get out for a couple of hours. I told Wifey to drop me off at HOOTERS while she went to the mall. Right off, Wifey says no to the HOOTERS sanctuary, so I was very much in her power. We got to the mall and from outside it looked like a scene from FOX news when all the loony Egyptians took to the streets in Cairo not long ago.

       Malls have always fascinated me. We used to build civilizations, but now we build shopping malls. Seems we peaked. The malls are like windowless fortresses manned by underpaid serfs and con artist. The committed bargain hunters enter through the swinging portals with a grim determination on their faces and blood in their eyes. Shopping for Wifey is very much like a contact sport such as football. She enjoys the scrimmage, the noisy crowds, the over priced food, the danger of being trampled to death, and the ecstasy of the purchase. I don’t shop anymore because of my knee injury.

       The parking lot, (the trenches) was no man’s land. No empty spaces anywhere and cars were slowly prowling the lanes like wounded cheetahs…..I was sure I could hear screams coming from the mall’s entrance. The shopping director, Wifey, recalculated her course and soon we were heading to Wally World (Wal-Mart).

       After a 15 minute ride, she let me off in front of the mega store and I was told to sit on the old folks bench and wait for her while she drove to the next county to park the car. I obediently sat on the sticky bench and observed the natives. Wal-Mart natives are comprised of many tribal affiliations. West Viginiikes, Alabamian Pud Pullers, Georgiana Sheep Sniffers and many more….all dressed in their traditional tribal butt crack regalia.

       In time, Wifey comes huffing up to the store and once inside I’m instructed to ride one of their ‘scoot-arounds’ as I’m an invalid in training. I had a little buzzer for warning folks that an old fart was coming through, but you could hardly hear it for all the jabbering dialects.

       Already Wifey’s eyes were starting to glaze over and she started sniffing the air. Soon she picked up the scent of a sale and we’re off like a huntress and her scooter hound. Wifey is a serious minded being when it comes to watching my money. The quickest way to get to know a woman is to go shopping with her and I have learned several things about Wifey and her philosophies on the concept of competitive shopping. First off, she believes that anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination…Second,….she will buy anything that has a sign saying ‘one to a customer,’ and third, she likes her money right where she can see it….hanging in her closet.

       She ravaged the women’s clothing department looking for anything that said “Extra Medium,” or “Petit Large”…..she was unsuccessful. My sole responsibility was to sit and hold her purse while I watched the young women picking through the halter tops and thongs. She soon tossed a furry looking hat in her cart on top of all the other imported, (Chinese) goods and bargains and we finally headed to the front of the crowded store and then waited. Anyone who believes the competitive spirit in America is dead has never been in a Wal-Mart when the cashier opens another checkout line. After the rush, all that remained was a confused old man sitting in a scooter with a dead battery. Wifey had abandoned me like a mammal abandons it’s young fur seal sleeping on the beach. She had made it to the new cashier and was only second in line with about twenty shoppets behind her. She looked back at my predicament and with a sad look on her face, she just shrugged her shoulders in sympathy. In turn, I held up her purse and shrugged mine.