FRAGILE

I feel like a package being tossed around the post office of life.

 

Put a FRAGILE sticker on me dammit.

I can't take much more.

 

At least give me a HANDLE WITH CARE sticker.

I'll never get to my destination in one piece.

 

Couldn't you have asked for EXPRESS MAIL. 

Or Special Handling.

 

Where am I going anyway?

WAILING

I admire those old MIddle Eastern women you see on tv.

They are always wailing their hearts out over the insane killings and bombings.

Sometimes they are wailing over the rotten fruit in the marketplace.

But the whole idea is that they wail when they are pissed.

 

I think we should have Wailing Walls here in America...

Someplace to go and wail when things don't go our way.

Maybe have one in every backyard instead of a plastic pool.

 

I would like to wail, and I would do it even without a wall

but it scares the dog and sets him to barking...and my wife yells

"Stop that wailing you crazy old man".

 

I suspect that wailing is quite healthy.

But I would do it over all kinds of stuff.

I wouldn't want to have family members killed

just to get in a few good wails.

 

I would wail if my morning newspaper got wet

and I couldn't unfold the pages.

I hate that.

 

I would wail if the lightbulb goes out on the stove.

(You can't reach the damn thing!)

Or if one of the kitchen flourescent lights goes out

and has to be replaced.
I do in fact wail when this happens.

Fortunately flourescents last for hundreds and hundreds of hours. 

On the Road to Recovery

Remember those old Bob Hope-Bing Crosby-Dorothy Lamour movies? The famous "road" pictures that were so funny? My recovery from a recent stroke would make a great road picture. Or one of those stupid reality shows. I used to tell my children when something bad happened: "Two years from now, you will be laughing at this". They never believed it. Some things took longer, but they were girls.

I always believed the sooner you could find humor in a bad situation, the sooner your got over it. But don't laugh at funerals. Unless they drop the casket. I am trying to apply my philosophy to my stroke recovery and I am laughing already. I laughed first when my wife was trying to find a medical transportation company to take me from North Carolina where I had the stroke down to a rehab hospital in Savannah, a distance of about 300 miles. They wanted $7,000! I told my wife to go down to Main Street in Saluda and find some guy who had a pick up truck and see if he would put a mattress in the back and haul me home. But she was smarter. She called a limo service and found someone to take me in a limo for just $432. My grandson wanted to ride with me. When we got to the hospital, they thought a rock star had arrived. The hospital was very, very nice. They have won awards for 6 years now as one of the top 100 employers in the country. They treated me like a prince...the nurses were so nice and so were the therapists. I can't say much for the food but the night nurse made me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich as a snack. All the patients were stroke victims since that's what the hospital specializes in. The doctor said I should have a fast and complete recovery. But his idea of fast is a lot different than mine. I was in the hospital for six weeks and I've been out for six weeks...and I am still recovering. I am making progress, but it is very slow. I'm trying to be a patient patient. My wife is my primary care giver...when she came to get me from the hospital I reminded her of saying "for better or for worse" some 50 years ago. I said, "This is worse." Actually she's been very good at it. She's been trying to get control of me for all these years so now she has my checkbook, my car, my credit cards. I don't even get an allowance. Plus I think it brings out her mothering instincts. At first we had therapists who came to the house...one suggested getting Amazing Tongs, those things that are like giant tweezers...you squeeze the top part and these claws come together like those machines in convenient stores where you try to get toys. She said I could pick up pennies with it. Now, why in hell would I want to pick up pennies? Honestly. Stroke victims don't need pennies...we need hundred dollar bills. I am using my tweezers to pinch my wife inappropriately. I go to a regular gym now for outpatient physical therapy. It should be decorated like a dungeon because the machines are designed to torture people. I was hoping they were machines where they strapped you on, turned on the switch and the machine did all the work. But no such luck. I think my therapist guy came over here from Parris Island, at the Marine base. He doesn'r put up with any whining. YOU CAN DO IT! he bellows. And when he bellows, I do it. A lot of people come to the gym who aren't doing therapy. I have noticed that the older women are in much better shape than the men. The guys arrive at the gym in walkers or with canes. The women skip in. They have cute clothes and nice shoes. They jump right up on the machines and start moving. My personal take on this is that the guys are in recovery and the women are on the prowl. They are probably recently widowed and want to get back in the game. They aren't the least bit interested in the guys in recovery. Why should they be? They have televisions on the stationary bikes, but none of the programs are as interesting as watching Chicks roll around on huge colored balls. I always want to throw them a fish when they finish and watch them clap their flippers. They have so many balls around the place but I've already told the therapist that I am not getting on one of those balls. He says they hold up to 500 lbs. I'm not worried about the ball exploding; I'm worried about rolling off. I threw myself out of bed the other night, accidentally of course. But as I slid off the side I was smart enough to take a pillow with me. I could not get up and I didn't want to wake my wife in the middle of the night so I just snuggled up on the floor with my pillow and slept until she came downstairs and found me. I am deaf so I have to read lips. But lying on the floor and trying to read her lips was difficult. So she stretched out on the floor beside me so I could read her lips. I said, "How in the world did we ever come to this?" And I do wonder. I want to recover but sometimes I think it would be easier to become an invalid. You could get one of those modernized scooters that are advertised constantly on television (and I don't believe for a minute that those people are crippled! They're models and they probably have a champagne party after the filming.) If I were an invalid, I could catch up on my reading. People could come visit me (but would they?) and bring me food. I could eat anything because as long as I had the scooter I could get fatter and fatter. And if I got too fat for one scooter, I could get a double-wide. But I'm not ready to give up yet. You have to keep at it if you want back in the game. And I want back in the game. Soon.

Joe's Chicken Room

My Grandson, The Basketball Player

My grandson, Davis, is determined to be a star athlete like his older brother. He's back on the basketball court this year, running from one end of the court to the other. But never getting to touch the ball. Poor guy. He's always yelling, "Throw me the ball! I'm in the clear!" And he is in the clear because the other team members don't bother to guard him. They remember him from last year. He practiced all summer shooting baskets in his driveway and he actually made 8 out of 10 shots. I know it's easier when you don't have another 5 people hounding you on the court. But still, 8 out of 10 is good. Four of us go to every game to watch him not get the ball. We watch as he sits on the bench with his hands on his knees so he can jump up the minute the coach calls for number 40, his number. I"ve started going to the games a little early. I take a fistfull of dollar bills. I don't try to bribe the coach. What I do is offer any kid --- on either team --- a dollar bill for every time they throw the ball to Davis. I know it probably sounds like a disgusting form of bribery but I figure, what's the point of having money if you can't enjoy it. GO DAVIS, GO.

"I Want My Foreskin Back!"

It's a cry that's being heard all across America as millions of guys who were circumcised as babies without their consent suddenly want their foreskin back. They fear, rightly so, that their foreskin probably ended up on a tray of calamari somewhere. They are pissed. The good news is, if you are one of those guys, you can get your foreskin back. You can grow a new one! Wait...wait...this isn't one of those offers from Canada to grow a bigger penis with the aid of a pump. Although a foreskin will certainly enhance the look and even make you appear to be European. Non-Jewish, of course. This is legitimate. A guy has invented a product that will grow a new foreskin. He's looking for an appropriate name. (Email him at: WhatDoICallThis.com). He swears that it works. But, with all new products, there are a few kinks to work out. One, the foreskin grows back in color. And, as yet, you are not able to chose your color. You have to take your chances. You could become Ralph, the Red Penis Guy. But look what a red nose did for Rudolph. The other bothersome side effect is that once the foreskin starts growing, it doesn't stop. It keeps growing. But it's slow growing. Yet you don't want a long foreskin and a short aft skin. Or do you? The inventor says the continual growth shouldn't be a problem. He says you can safely clip it at home. "Like clipping your toenails," he proclaims. Well not exactly. It's not so easy to reach your toes.

Mason Jars: You've Got to Love Them

I just read a wonderful collection of stories by Gary Carden in his book called MASON JARS IN THE FLOOD. Carden is a great storyteller in the tradition of mountain people in Western North Carolina. Some people call them "Rememberers" and I love that name. Much better than raconteurs. (Someone introduced me once when I was giving a talk as a wonderful raconteur. I had to rush home afterwards and look it up in the dictionary. It sounded like someone who ran the roulette wheels in Las Vegas. The dictionary just said it meant: storyteller. As a Texas friend of mine used to say, "Those French. They have a word for everything." And they do. Most of their words make you pucker when you say them --- like "we, we madame". And I honestly think that's how the French got the reputation as being lovers. They are always puckered up like they are ready to kiss somebody.) But back to Gary's book. I bought it because of the name. I love Mason Jars. I love the name. I love the way they look. I love the memory of what my Mother and my Grandmother used to put in them. They called it canning, but there were no cans involved. They should have called it "jarring". When fruits and vegetables started coming on in the summer, I would start washing jars. Actually I boiled them. They had to be clean and germ free. Then the women started filling them with peaches, green beans and tomatoes mostly. But also jellies and jams. My Mother's prized possession was a big pressure cooker which made canning quicker and easier. But it spit steam and sputtered like it might blow its lid and kill us all. She wouldn't let me in the kitchen when the pressure cooker was cooking. She claimed she knew a woman whose cooker exploded and took the roof off the kitchen. I doubted it even as a kid because she and my Grandmother were given to exaggeration. We didn't call it lying because they would say this stuff to make a point that would stick in your head. Once when I was grown and had teenage daughters, my Grandmother came to visit and was alarmed that they had electric blankets. I heard her telling them later about a friend of her's who got "fried" by an electric blanket. "She was like a crisp piece of bacon. With a head on it." It was an outrageous story, but none of my daughters would sleep under an electric blanket after that. Canning gave my Mother so much satisfaction. She would stack the jars on the pantry shelf and stand there admiring her handy work. And it was work: all that snapping and stringing of green beans; and the peeling of peaches and tomatoes. We were never allowed to eat the food in the jars when it was first canned. There were still fresh vegetables in the fields. "Wait for cold weather," my Mother would admonish. And when cold weather set in, she would start opening the Mason Jars. She would open a jar of tomatoes and say, "Smell this. It smells like summer." And it did. And it tasted like summer and made all the hard work of filling the Mason Jars worthwhile. I have a lot of Mason Jars sitting around my house in the mountains of North Carolina. A lot of them are filled with marbles. Some with buttons. Some with flower seeds. I've actually got some that are filled with food. All of them were winners in the Western North Carolina State Fair. The whole peaches look like art; even the green beans look like art...much too pretty to eat. My wife --- a city girl --- has always been afraid to eat home canned foods. I told her they found a jar of canned pickles in King Tut's tomb...more than 2,000 years old and still crispy. She said, "You lie like your Mother and Grandmother." I do. I'm a raconteur. I never learned to can, I regret to say. It's something that I could have passed on to my own children. It's doubtful they would want to do all that work. I guess I can leave them all my Mason Jars filled with marbles and stuff. You don't need a pressure cooker for filling jars with marbles.

Preaching at the Holy Church of Juanita

My friend, Juanita Leonard, invited me down to Louisiana to preach at her church. She's got her own church in her back yard. It makes it eaiser to go to church on Sunday morning. It's right there! And you can go in your pajamas if you don't want to get dressed and if you have nice pajamas. Juanita is a black folk artist who paints somewhat in the style of famous Clementine Hunter who lived nearby. But Juanita doesn't limit herself to a canvas. She has painted the inside of her church with people picking cotton and with big, big chickens. Neither of these images have religious significance as far as I can determine, but they are both images that she has mastered and has down pat. She has two houses on her property and she has painted these with cotton pickers and chickens, both inside and out. And on the floors and on the ceilings. I don't think Juanita really believed that I would come to preach at her church when she invited me. But I am a Holy Man Without a Church so I have to go where I am called. Plus, she promised me a pot of Chicken Gumbo. I made darn sure I got the gumbo right before I went all the way out there to preach. I've been tricked before. But Juanita had the pot of gumbo, indeed. And she served it to me in the pot, right off the stove. I ate it sitting on a Lazy Boy Lounger that she had recently rescued from the side of the road. It only had one setting....flat out. And I can testify that it's hard to eat a pot of hot gumbo --- even good gumbo --- when you are on your back. She served the gumbo in the pot with a big potholder to keep it from burning my stomach. After we ate, we went out back to her church. It has two pulpits...and two chairs. "Where does the congregation sit?" I asked. "In those two chairs. If they get here early. Otherwise it is standing room only." "And where does the choir sit?" I wondered. "Over in the corner," she said as she pointed to a single chair. "It's not a big choir. We only have one person who has a decent singing voice. But we have a Karioka machine and a tape of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. She sings with the Mormons and it shakes the roof on Sunday. When they sing The Messiah, people can hear it all over town. "Well, what time does church service start?" I wanted to know. "When someone shows up," she said. "You can start your sermon at any time. We don't have to wait." "But who am I going to preach to?" I asked. "My daughter is here. I'm here. Who were you expecting...the twelve disciples? I could put the Mormon Tabernacle Choir on low." So I proceeded. After it was over, Juanita apologized for her congregation and such a poor turnout. "I had my daughter call the Associated Press with a scoop that Father Joe was coming to preach today. I should not have told them you are white. My people don't think y'all know anything about the Lord."