There is a shoebox where I keep small things sacred to me, like Dad's antique Case pocket-knife. His wife gave it to me when he passed away twenty years ago. He used it primarily to clean soil from beneath his fingernails. He was a gardner, hardworking and stoic. With a head full of aeronautical engineering and horticulture. Today I put the knife into my jeans pocket with my Jeep keys. My fingernails pick up soil too, from planting magical things in my garden, along with blooming plants from the nursery. (Glad I held off on the hydrangea. Pretty harsh hailstorm last night!) Knife feels good in my pocket. Dad was first-rate!
*
Tried sitting in the yard with radio playing classical music. Could not abide the ferocious scrutiny of the cloudy sky. Went inside and closed the curtains of my room. Remembered when such a mental state would drive me to drink. Can almost taste the whiskey.
*
Reckon this was the warmest winter I can recall. Boy Howdy! I can recall two winters back-to-back (1980 and 1981) that were the coldest! In 1981 I was working in Kwilecki's hardware in Quincy. It was an old store that served the poorer folks in town (even established credit for them, much of which was never repaid). Some of them were quite desperate. And they could always count on Kwilecki's. You see, we fixed things as well as selling things. I cut glass for window panes (once using a customer's piece of string for measurement!) and for plumbers I cut and threaded pipe. One bitter-cold morning a customer came dragging in a 15-foot section of water pipe from beneath his house. It had begun to thaw and was dripping all over the wooden floor. He said: "Ah needs a new somethin' lahk this!" I choked on my coffee. Looked back at my boss. He shrugged and gave me a less than sympathetic smile. Hey, what ever the customer wants, Lenny!
*
Brilliant early morning in the yard. Windchimes praying. A high wind swaying the pines with Wagnerian gusts. Took my folding chair to town. Downtown Market. Hello to Allen and Amberturtle. Listened to folksinger: "This Land Is My Land." Splendid, sitting in a patch of warm sun. People eddying all around.
*
Spring cleaning. Tackling the bird-feeder in the front yard. Whew! Time to meditate. ("Procrastination is the assassin of opportunity." Church sign in Chaires.)
*
Espresso in the yard. One hand clapping.
*
Got the moon in a mason jar. Going to bury it deep in the earth. Thinking it will make mighty fine shine.
*
Tonight I will drive the dark canopy road home. Mindful of deer, and counting the silver apples of the moon.
*
Took the lam from a poetry reading (back then) with a friend named Wendy. Went to see "Female Trouble." Loved Wendy's "penis poems."
*
99 days since I expressed road rage with my bowfinger! Self-imposed anger-management is good for the soul.
*
FACEBOOK POST: TEXAS INTERNATIONAL POP FESTIVAL 1969.
True story! Larry Smoller, John Alt and me-self drove up from Randolph AFB for the Saturday show. One week after Woodstock. Caught Janis and Santana and I forget-who-all! Panhandling hippies asking for ticket money. What a trip! Am surprised I remember anything. Fantastic summer. Great music everywhere! We were short-haired and obviously military, but the hippies were true to Peace and Love and everyone got along wonderfully. In a time when GIs were unpopular with fellow Boomers. Bought my ticket at San Antonio headshop called The Joint. (At the show we saw Joplin's ass more than her face. She was boogy-ing with bandguys!)
*
Barefoot on the front lawn. Baseball cap and cammo shorts. Windy armpits. Listening to storm's prelude. Cats in the window.
*
Pixie pink nose (cute face. mouse killer.) watches me fix hashbrowns and roastbeef hash: "Cut a deal, dude. Some of my Friskies for some of that. What say?"
*
Once upon a time I owned a New Age bookstore in Tallahassee and I labored to present the beauty of Scripture and Science. I met gifted people and learned from them what I could. I laugh now. Remembering this particular gentleman. A Moslem from the Middle East. He said: "You know that these translations of the Koran are not fully true. The Koran cannot be translated. However, I will bring you the best attempt." This pleased me. Then he espied my array of Sufi literature. He sniffed with displeasure and departed, never to be seen again. I sat there on the rug and mused. Yes! I recalled how certain Christians abhore Gnostics and Mystics of their own faith.(The Sufi books? Rumi and Hafiz. So it goes.)
*
At the end of our lane and a short bush-trek beyond seeps the miniscule Saint Marks River. I know this because the Serpent told me. (Must be this Arizona green tea & pomegranite juice!)
*
I love horror stories. Began with Robert Bloch in high school. Progressed through H.P. Lovecraft and Algernon Blackwood. Still reading the stuff. Wish I could write it myself. But what the hell? So now I'm reading Bulwer-Lytton's "The House and The Brain." In it a chap sees footprints materializing before him. Well, this flashes me back to when I owned a bookstore in Monticello called Hemingway & Co. Mostly used paperbacks. Proudly I stocked a shelf of personally respected new books. Then there were the comic books. Before I go any further: the store lost money. Folks who read books bought them in Tallahassee and the kids who liked comic books could not afford them. Anyway, it was fun. The newspaper editor dropped in, got no further than the new books (Joseph Campbell was hot then.), when he sniffed: "Pricey!" But he did the right thing. He sent a reporter by to do a story on me. She was swell. Wrote a nice piece. I told her I was starting a magazine called Southern Fantasy. Fiction and non-fiction. Campfire tales and true ghost stories. She said she had a true ghost story already written. I said great, bring it by. My intentions were to let writers accept the responsability for being truthful. The story told of how her dead husband would visit her. She was 30, so evidently the marriage had been young and brief. She would see him sitting in his LazyBoy chair. Once she saw footprints appear in the shag carpet going down the hall toward that chair. Wow! Having suspended all disbelief, I was creeped out! Imagine, I told myself, this is NOT A MOVIE!
*
Somebody left the freezer door open. Walked naked to pick up my home-delivered Transylvania Gazette. The Frost Giant's daughter jogged along the trail with her blue-eyed white wolf. said: "Better put something on, Sugar!"
*
Mother Nature is my religion and this miniature forest is my cathedral. Feeling like Thoreau and his Pond. Two cardinals, one hawk, and itty-bitty-flitty wrens building a nest. Subtle motions observed. What made me remember Rip Van Winkle? Izaak Walton? Uh oh, a leaf just dropped into my coffee!
*
Moving on. One foot at a time. Progressing. Stepping into a footprint I have made before. No backtracking. No rue. No baggage.
*
The neighbors speak in whispers. "There he is again. That old man, burying moon things in his yard. Funky weird shit--"
*
Love my canopy road. Old Saint Augustine. An afternoon fox, a midnight deer. Both are safe with me.
*
What a delight, this morning watching "Doctor Strangelove" on TCM. Slim Pickens and, yes, James Earl Jones aboard the B-52! Bomb painted: "Hi there!"
*
In the upper room of a redbrick domicile on College Street. Early 70s. An indigo breeze through an open window. Friends sitting in a mellow circle. Masking the roach infestation, bedspreads from India hang like tapestry. Patchouli oil and sandlewood incense. Huge ottoman. Magic carpet on the floor. Mahavishnu Orchestra on the Gerrard. Maya, Goddess of Illusion, dances!
*
When I was little and full of grace there was a quiet mystery to Ash Wednesday. The nuns told us the ash came from palms burned last year on Palm Sunday. Whatever. With the smudge upon my brow I walked from the church to the school next door (Saint Patrick's) with a calm calm heart.
*
What a gorgeous day! Carpe diem! Grab the carp!
*
Confessions of a flick freak. Ten years old, and my allergist Doctor Zivitz would test me each week (tiny needles to the arm six at a time) to see what caused my asthma. Dad ruled the Walbri saltwater pool off-limits. Doctor's orders. I was free to roam the estate as if it were the Garden of Eden, hiding in shrubs and spying on servants, chaffeurs and guests. To make up for the swimming restrictions, Dad drove me each Saturday to the flicks. The Surf and Normandy matinees offered cartoons, chapter plays (Captain Marvel, Batman, Commando Cody) and nifty B-movies. After the Briggs family sold the estate we moved to a house we owned (Dad's investment property) in Miami Shores. Across the street from Barry College. The Shores theatre had active Saturday fare. There was a rave-up before the projectionist started. Once there was a hge Yo-Yo competition up on the stage. I could do an OK "walk the dog" with my Duncan, but my stage-fright was worse than my asthma. (Doctor Zivitz was something of a shrink. We would have chatty sit-downs following the clinical business. He wanted to determine if my asthma was psycho-somatic. Incidentally, he included me in a gathering of shrinks at the Roney Plaza, where I acted in a Psychodrama. I was "father" and some girl I did not know was "mother." Of that, all I remember is being in the spotlight.) After a while, I grew into adolesence, and I demanded to see grown-up movies. Mom took me to see "From The Terrace" and "Butterfield 8" (John O'Hara was big in Hollywood.) She was planning, I believe, a birds-and-the-bees discussion at some point. Trouble was, she had too many hang-ups herself to talk about sex. It was sinful, basically. Well, the Shores theatre also matured, and became rather tony. As a college boy I preferred the old Rosetta. Dingy-clean, comfy, L-shaped. In Little River. Second-run double-bills with afternoon discounts. Retirees brought their brown-bag lunches and sodas. Then, I became a "film-goer." Nothing but European flicks with sub-titles would do. In the shadow of Jordan Marsh on Biscayne Boulevard, the Mayfair Art theatre offered the latest sensations: Resnais, De Sica, Godard, Fellini, you know. Doctor Zivitz was right. I had become a movie addict. A flick-freak. There was a pen-holder on his desk with a name-plate: Major, USMC. On each end was a .50 cal machinegun round. More importantly, on his desk was a portrait of his family. In a moment of psycho-analytic honesty I said in a gush that I wished I were one of them!
*
Human skin has deep memory. If flayed it would speak in exotic languages. Of the days you walked in the sun, mowing extravagant lawns. Of hours vacuuming sapphire swimming pools and clipping hairy coconuts from nude trees. Your pale straw fedora is stained a dark amber. Summer job 1964. Legs brown as hickory and fatless as bowling pins. 20 years old. Endless youth! Sunlight rippling off Biscayne Bay hurts the eyes. Mowing on remote-control. A shirtless barefoot zombie stearing the machine. A mighty Jacobson. Lifting the blades above sprinkler heads. A mind jumping with stories to be typed into manuscript! Tales of Homeric fantasy and Hemingway-esque bravado. Seven lawns on Indian Creek Island. Three kidney-shaped swimming pools. Five days a week. June July August! A lifetime later you are covered with cancers. All demanding revenge. A knife has no memory.
*
Azalea nodding beneath the gentle monsoon. Now for a wet journey home. A tart crepe suzette and a soft bed full of cats!
*
It's midnight and the soggy breeze sweeps leaves into the lobby everytime someone enters. It nudges the window glass like so many tommyknockers. Who's that? Who's there? Is everything locked?
*
All this talk has me hungry for something I can't have. The bratwurst and german potato salad at Dunderback's deli in a San Antonio mall. (1971) But then, there's Publix up the street!
*
Gray misty mornings are so mystery-like. Borders are obscured. Territories appear limitless. The air itself burdens your shoulders. (Sitting in my Jeep, plundering my books. Severe attention deficit! What to read? Chambers, Fortune, Machen? Let's drive into town and get a buzzcut!)
*
The Thunderbirds were coming. Big dangerous F-4 Phantoms. They would be parking right outside our ad hoc public relations post. I was sick of public relations. I was sick of the Air Force too. I had an ATTITUDE! Vietnam had corrupted everything. I wasn't serving in the Air Force romanticized in Anthony Mann's "Strategic Air Command" with Jimmy Stewart. Yes, I loved the endless runways and limitless blue skies with the warm wind hooting in my ears. "Sergeant Schweitzer, I'm TELLING you for the LAST time," my NCO boss shouted. "Take OFF those hippie sunglasses!" They were the kind Donald Sutherland wore in M*A*S*H. Yeah I was fed up. Everything was so Mickey Mouse. I hated saluting pinheads. Hanoi Jane was holding fuck-the-army rallies across the country. The zeitgeist was blowing in the wind. At the end of this particular day my NCO boss invited me to a little sit-down over enchiladas at the flight-line cafeteria. Randolph was the Westpoint of the Air. We had veteran Red River Rats (pilots of Thunderchiefs and Phantoms who had flown over North Vietnam's Red River) mingling with trainees. NCO boss said if I wanted out I could be out. With dishonor. BUT there was a better option. A transfer. To HQ USAF Recruiting Service. An editor position was vacant. Well sir, I didn't let that offer grow cold. It did entail moving from my homelike semi-private room to a new barracks with open-bay bunking. I lingered in my old comfort zone just long enough to be tapped for an aircraft crash-site detail. Recruiting Service had a topflight information office. I lovedmy new job. Editing an official Air Force newspaper/house-organ. The challenge was the very thing to turn my head around.
A month later I was cropping photos and designing pages when a CID man appeared at my desk. Criminal investigation? What the hell? Evidently the editor I had replaced failed to report for duty. He had SEA (Southeast Asia) orders. He would have been in the rear with gear at some information office and living in a hooch. He skipped to Canada with his father's blessings. My reply to the CID man was a Hogan's Heros classic. Sergeant Schultz: I know NO-THING!
The paper was successful. Eventually awarded best in its class, and I received the Commendation Medal. This was largely due to my new NCO boss Tech/Sergeant Marvin Matter from Comfort, Texas. A baseball umpire with a knack for excellent journalism. My GS-13 boss was a crusty old guy from Billings, Montana. Loved him dearly, especially when I fucked up and he punched me in the arm! The paper was printed in San Antonio. A non-union shop run by a tough gray-haired widow named Mrs. Sanchez. At first I was assigned a blue staff car. But since I liked to knock around San Antonio after dark I bought a used VW Bug that Marvin dubbed "El Buggo." Drove it all over the place. Mrs. Sanchez was umpteen generations Tex-Mex. She lived out past the Olmos Basin. Cooked me dinner a few times. One day Vasquez, her Linotype operator, showed up late, all beaten up. Union men had mugged him. He said he was quitting. Oh, that was a bad day. But Mrs. Sanchez prevailed and Vasquez stayed on. He was a quiet little man with a lot of sand. There are many tales to be told. Hah! One thing irritated me at the office. There was a guy in public relations who called me "Scoop." I took early offense, stupid me. Thought he meant I wasn't a true newspaperman. Truth was, I wasn't! I was Air Force!
*
Paid the library fines. The ladies let me back into the building. No strip-search required! (Yakuza runs security. Not Homeland Security. So, next time I'm forgetful/naughty, I lose a finger.)
*
Golden flashback: 15 years old at Brockway Memorial Library, Miami Shores Village. The westering sun of late afternoon gilding the spines of wonderful books. Furtively reading "Lady Chatterly's Lover." Fearful of being noticed by friends and nearby adults. "She looked down at the milky odd little flowers among the maiden hair at the lower tip of her body."
*
A fog drifted in from the hill country to the north and as it passed in front of the huge movie screen at the drive-in, it began to sparkle. Tina Turner was performing fellatio upon the microphone stand during "Gimmee Shelter." My airmen buddies and I were drinking whiskey in Wild Bill's Mercury Cougar. Hey-o, what's that lady doing? After the show we headed back to base. Along the way we grabbed breakfast at a truckstop on a hill, seen from the highway by merit of its neon. GAS & EAT. Yeah, Wild Bill liked to say: "Eat and get gas!" My order consisted of chicken-fried steak and hashbrowns, texas toast and jelly. Finally we lurch into the barracks. I was supposed to be sleeping there because I had been transferred. I had gone up in the world. From Base Information to HQ USAF Recruiting Service. Editor! Thing was, my newly assigned barracks sucked. Open bay beds. Lockers and plexiglass partitions. Farts and vomits. Was very comfortable in my old semi-private room and was very reluctant to leave it. (Creating bad karma!) So there I was, snoozing away, when the NCO of the Watch hammers on my door: Get the fuck up, Schweitzer! Assembly in ten!
Shit.
There had been an aircraft accident in the hills. A T-37 "Tweety" had augered in with two officers aboard. Flying in the fog on instruments, about the time we were at the drive-in. We were driven in a school bus to a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. The sun came up and word was they hadn't found the wreck site yet. Nobody wanted them to find it. God knows! The T-37 was called "Tweety" because of the maddening whine of its turbine while it taxied. We were ordered to search for human remains. If we spotted anything biger than a loaf of bread, we were to call a mortician. I remember two officers who would gleefully sprint up: oh boy oh boy a big piece! Total neurotics!
The fusilage was mostly still there. The cockpit contained purple pudding. All the nearby live oaks were decorated like Christmas trees with fleshy ornaments. I found a thigh in the tall grass. Soon I was numb. A zombie. That night I called home from the bowling alley. Had to talk to Mom and Dad. Nothing to say. They must have thought I was stoned.
*
So tell me, Doctor Freud, how come I'm always a young fellow in my dreams? Not that I'm complaining! The situations seem to demand it!
*
Love driving Old Saint Augustine Road. It's canopied. Hardly ever go up Highway 27. Midnight, one grown deer crossing in the headlight cone. Nimble beauty! This morning 8 A.M. three young ones traipsing across. Had to stop and admire.
*
When I was eight or so my parents discovered I knew the truth about Santa Claus. They asked why I hadn't let on earlier. I replied I wanted them to remain happy.
*
Once upon a time I was living in a 1903 house on Washington Street in Quincy, cat-corner from the police and fire stations. I rented the upstairs flat. Huge living room with a lamp abreast a legless rocking chair where I read the books from the collection that lined the baseboards. From a window I could see crepe myrtle booms in the summer. In the winter I closed the room, calling it "The Ice Room." I would write in the bathroom where there was a water-heater. Overcoat and moccasins. Wrote stories of deserts and caravanserie on remote planets. There was a long hall where I sat in the legless rocker close to a space-heater. I read by lamplight and slept on the sofa. The kitchen and dining area had a table where I would type on the Olivetti. Wrote the play "Snuff Movie." A radio played NPR. Remember an exciting dramatisation of "Les Miserables." The flat was high ceilinged and had tall windows and I could view Ward's Lot from the table. Watched kids play Little League. At night I sat with the Olivetti and drank Schaeffer, Genesie and Black Label by the dollar sixpack. When the pile of empties grew to a three foot pyramid I bagged them and under the cover of darkness would run covert ops to the dumpster across the street. I'm sure the cops and firemen got a laugh. "There goes that nutjob who runs in the lot with a white cat!" Along about 2 A.M. I would get hungry and begin to think of those fried chicken livers at Sergeant Kelly's minimart gas station. Open 24 hours. My white friends asked me how I could walk down there in the middle of the night. (I'm a night-stalker!) "Len, that parking lot is full of n-----s!" I always replied: "Well, look. You guys socialize in your living rooms and back yards. Those folks socialize at Sergeant Kelly's. Yes, they number about a hundred. But be cool and don't be an asshole and everything will be fine." This particular night I was standing in line where the ladies sold fried chicken. It was a long jocular merry line. I was the only white guy in the joint. Then suddenly two redneck crackers pushed inside, heading for the beer-case, and, I swear this is a true quote: "Gawd dayyum! There's more n-----s in heah than a TARZAN MOVIE!" My mind told me I was about to be dead. You should have seen the black people! They were beautiful. They considered the source of the insult and rolled their eyes. I was treated kindly that night and I will never forget it.
*
Winter drizzles icy and sharp. Not sleet, not snow. I wear Dad's black canvas fedora. He bought it in Hendersonille where he retired with his wife Marie. She gave it to me along with his old pocket knife. I try to be him. When he was alive I never measured up. But I'm sure he knows how I feel. My image of him: 50 years old, tall and slim. long sleeve white shirt, lincoln green Dickies work trousers, Bauch&Lomb aviator shades and a pith helmet. Inspecting the lawns under his care. Planting exotic shrubs and trees. Another image: same clothes (he never wore shorts), building a pier and deck at our summer cottage on Lake Placid, under the burning sun, learning as he went how to construct such a thing (planks were too widely spaced at first), and helped by a young man named Jim. I would be inside and reading a book, quite the drunkard, home on leave from the Air Force. Although I was his adopted son, by this time Jim was Dad's truer son. Down the line Jim would be trusted to execute Dad's last will and testiment. Jim moved his family to Hendersonville to be near Dad. They all enjoyed a life I never knew about. That was about when Dad bought that black canvas fedora.
*
Yesterday I came home to find my wife Betty on the phone. She hung up and said, "Karia has gone to Heaven." Her best friend, her girlhood friend, had just died. "That was the Pastor."
Then she told me all about it. Last week Karia, who lived on an isolated farm outside Blountstown, fell and broke her hip. She managed to call 911 with a life-alert device. She suffered enormous pain. In the hospital she was sedated, but the trauma managed to kill her. My wife told me Karia had attained hospice status recently and was being cared for by her sister. Soon as the sister learned Karia had named her beloved nephews as beneficiaries to inherit the property, she abandoned her, leaving Karia, who was now on oxygen support, alone. She could not travel. At least no farther than the mail box, to which she drove. Karia, sweet-voiced Karia, who loaned us $1,000 last year, when Betty totalled her car. Tall, reedlike, red of hair, Karia, who walked with Betty to Leon High School. Who worshipped with her at First Church of the Nazarine. I couldn't believe she was gone.
"The Pastor says the funeral will be in Blountstown Saturday. I can ride with him from Church. It's an hour's drive."
No tears! She knew I hated tears.
"You don't seem too broken up."
"When you're put on hospice you only have six months to live."
I remember when she lived a few blocks down the street in Tallhassee. She was a pious widow who studied the Bible daily. She remained single for many years. Then an older man named Zack courted her like a zealot. Eventually they married and he moved in with her, keeping his fishing shack near Wakulla. Oh he could deep-fry mullet! He and Karia were Nazarines scarcely removed from Southern Baptist.
Zack convinced Karia to sell her home and together they bought a farm. He wanted to return to the land. Karia's parents had lived on a farm in Capitola. She was pleased at the prospect of leaving busy Tallahassee. Within a year Zack had died of a heart attack. Fell down dead in the field.
I remember Betty and Karia recalling Faye Dunnaway, who also attended Leon High School. Very popular, they agreed, and a bit stuck-up. Losing her bid to become May Queen.
*
There is more than dirt between my toes. God lives there. When I walk, my spirit walks.
*
Jeep nosed toward Lake Ella. Shady breeze. Red cardinal on port bough! Squeeze-bulb bicycle horns in the sky. Canadian geese! Now strolling single file. Beautiful creatures. Ma and Pa Mourning Dove make way! High school lovebirds kissing on a bench. Seize the moment! Heartbeats!
*
Feeling like a leatherstocking Natty Bumpo I looked at a primordial sky. Cool cerulean, with white cottonball clouds. This napping place was located up a ridge behind the Winn-Dixie on Tennessee Street. Today it's a warren of student condos. Deeper within the bush lived a tribe of homeless crazies, criminals and panhandlers. I resided in a nice flat in Quincy, but worked midnight shifts in Tallahassee. I rode the Grayhound and spent days away from home, busy with theatre rehearsals and going to movies. Missed my buddy White Cat. My bedding was a huge beach blanket and my pillow was a knapsack. Had books and an alarm clock. Ate at Shoney's breakfast buffet. Footloose and single!
*
One night waiting for the morning Grayhound for Quincy I dozed a TV-chair. Suddenly I heard a big fuss in the snack lounge. The manager was yelling at two homeless punks. Evidently they had stolen a chicken and put it in the microwave. Boom! The manager calmed himself for a moment. Said: "Aint gonna call the police, if you guys clean up this mess. Right now!"
*
It took a bottle of Black Jack to write a single poem. Then I fell asleep beneath a live oak tree. A warm wind rippled the field of colocasia, elephant ears, and as I dreamed of blue words, green words, invisible words, a kudzu wormed into my gaping mouth and found my gullet. Hours later I woke, completely cured.
*
Windchimes zen clapping noonday Angelus in the bamboo!
*
Spent a wonderful day in the yard. Coffee and books. Lunch al fresco. Wife comes out, says: you see the squirrels nest abvove you? I looked up. Sure enough, there was a nest. Empty. "So, where are the squirrels?" Reply: Out gathering. I pictured baby squirrels fusssing over an acorn on Animal Planet!
*
Gusty cool afternoon. No mosquitos. Folding chair alongside iron bird-feeder shaped like a pagoda. Verdigris, ancient-looking. Good vibes here. Tabla-raza sky!
*
Huge moon in Libra. Some call it Pink Moon. Mystic zephyr touches flesh. All comes softly.
*
Of Old Saint Augustine Road I have sung before. It's a classic Deep South canopy road, completely paved only within the past 15 years, that takes me from my double-wide domicile near Chaires to the "big city" of Tallahassee. By day its arch of boughs comforts the confused mind. By night its serpentine course mystifies the lucid mind. One dark night my Jeep lost its water-hose, and I was forced to turn into the parking lot of a white-walled church called The Church of Lord Jesus Christ and The Apostles and Prophets of Faith. A black congregation. A kind woman pulled alongside me and asked if I needed assistance. If I did, there were people inside who would help me. A Wednesday night prayer meeting was in progress. Fine fine Christians! Strangers of good will, as if from a Bible story. Cordially I declined, as I had a gallon of anti-freeze, enough to get me home. The offered hospitality overwhelmed me. Such grace is a boon for anyone's soul!
*
Idle thoughts before sunrise. A mockingbird.
*
Porchlight moths, One strays in as I go outside. Chilly obsidian air. The fat copper skink lies dreaming.
*
Must have been dreaming a scene from "Horatio Hornblower," with rigging falling from cannonshot. Nay! Avast! The bed canopy has collapsed! Ancient timbers of past repute, narrowly missing my romantic head!
*
Dashing to the jeep in the rain, I began to melt. Felt so nice.
*
We called Dad's dad Grandpop. Not sure what he did for a living, except to work at the ice plant in Okeechobee back in the 30s and 40s. He was retired when we visited him, living in a teardrop Airstream parked beneath a spreading ficus tree. Across the field was the machine shop where he had held a job in West Palm Beach. His big droopy moustache looked like Albert Schweitzer's. My sister and I weren't allowed to come inside. Too cramped. Plus he didn't like us. I think he lived on peanut butter. I think of him now because I eat the stuff same as he did. Spooning it out of a jar.
*
Boyhood memory. After school would walk to Polo Park, a Miami Beach recreation center. Hardball, softball, arts & crafts, marbles in the dirt, table-tennis. Had a pal, last name Einstein. The director enjoyed bragging to folks, "See those little guys playing ping-pong? That's Schweitzer and Einstein."
*
Sitting on the back deck at Black Dog overlooking Lake Ella, sipping a select grind, writing zen poems. Priceless morning!
*
Last night watching meteors and the moon I mused upon Horberger's Teutonic Theory of Fire and Ice. Then I decided I was nuts.
*
Just read Li Bai's poem "Drinking Alone Under The Moon." This Taoist poet from the Tang Dynesty is known in the West as Li Po. Embraced the moon and drowned.
*
A horned moon! Something to reflect in a bowl of crystal water. I love the night!
*
Wild scuppernong and blackberry. Wisteria and dogwood. Skinks and fire-ants.
*
Time to put down the paperback horror stuff. Time to enter the cool embrace of the forest. Barefoot, of course. Been a barefoot boy since I was a boy. The swank Goddess Hel leads me harshly on. My dark mistress.
*
On the way out, I noticed wife watching Animal Planet. There was a crow plucking at an eagle's tailfeathers. Eagle was preoccupied with something I did not see. I thought about how intelligent crows are touted to be. Add hellbent and crazy to the list!
*
First college major was Education. I wasn't crazy about that. So there I was in Adolecent Psychology. We were given an assignment to go into a classroom and observe a student and write an evaluation. I chose a quiet little girl who gave me very little to write about. What a bust! After that fiasco I moved my major to Mass Communications. Underwater Basket-weaving was not an option!
*
I love used-book stores! After all, I'm a used book myself.
*
What a crisp, fresh morning on the lawn. A bluestream norther, boughs shaking. Thoughts return to Quincy 1980: sitting on a stone bench and cracking pecans with a hammer. Landlady said her tree was mine to plunder!
*
Once upon a time I worked at Kwilecki's Hardware in Quincy. There was a mentally challenged black man named Leroy who rode a small bicycle around town. One dark night he was creamed by a huge truck on the state road north of town. A day or so later, we were visited by the black community's undertaker, a spindly man in a stiff ebon suit. He poked around for a few minutes. Then he asked if we sold anything that could glue flesh onto flesh. He needed to re-afix poor Leroy's nose. Aghast, we sent him away with a tube of Crazy Glue. My friend Bubba said: "That's some creepy shit."
*
There is a pine tree near the jeep's spot where enormous mushrooms grow. Sometimes a six-inch diameter. I make sure nothing tramples them. Wondering what the summer will bring. (No! They're NOT magic shrooms, if that's what you're thinking!)
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Early Fall of 1968. Permanently away from home. New to Air Force living. Barracks with no privacy. Guys slamming into upright gray metal lockers as if playing scrimmage. Took the bus into San Antone and rented a cheap room at the YMCA. A weekend spree, alone in the Alamo City. Drinking beer in Riverwalk pubs, listening to folksingers (my favorite being a German woman who lost a leg as a child during an Allied air-raid). Movies and books and HemisFair attractions. A red-hued fog smothers the downtown at night. Strange dreams, persistent knocks at the door. Waking up to streetsounds, a cross-walk chirruping. My third floor window is open. A fellow in the communal shower flirts. Not interested. Hung-over and glad of my smuggled pint of scotch. In glorious privacy I have girlie magazines from the Globe newstand. Meeting nice college girls is something for the future. On my return to the barracks I find I am a man of mystery.
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Crescent moon slits open the night. Sky bleeds india ink like decadent sap. Horned owl steals errant soul. Stars turn their eyes away.
