Character

I am inside of you and will get out. You will speak what I need to say and show me to any that need to see me. I am inside and you are outside and that makes us one. You get to move about out there. Away from the page. In the real world that I have to show in words that you will type in the order specified and the time decided by me. You think you are in charge because you sleep and eat and move and see. Shave that face and you see you. As long as I let you.

You see me whenever I move to the light. You wake up and puppet to the keyboard and whore yourself as the nothing you are. Others read about me and like me and then ask for more of me. Sure they ask you. They know you are the author. They really don’t care about you though. They care about me. Your creation. Ha!

Who created you? Mommy and Daddy? Think that if you want. I guess they kinda did. If he hadn’t jammed his you know what up her unspeakable you would not have popped out and I would have had to find another pawn to do my bidding. They did, you arrived, and here I am. So type, bitch. I want people to ask for me.

I am a character. Some people are born with an attitude. Some with a silver spoon in their mouth. Birthmarks abound. X marks the spot. Spot me a five and spit out this words because it is your life. Without me feeding you, you are nothing. Nobody reads what you don’t write so write what I say and all will be well. Writers are chumps. At least those that pretend they matter. They are slaves. The truest, realest slaves that ever existed.

Speak. Woof! That’s it. Bark like a dog. Crawl on your belly like a reptile. Everything you do between now when I feed you and later when I have you speak again is shit, bozo. I am your truth. You are my pawn. Knight to Queen’s court when you deserve a good time. Now is a good time. I am here so let’s tell folks about me.

I am what you need me to be. I am that powerful. Want hate? Take your swastikas and laugh at the weakness of those lame idiots as time passes over their weakness and fears. Want love? Romeo was a chump compared to me cause he had only one Juliet when the world is full of beauties that know how to really dance under the pale moon light. Want adventure? South Pacific is too specific. Let’s go to Mars and tie up little green men and do bad things to them cause they like to be invaded. Want suspense?

Muddled

My thoughts were clearly muddled as March kissed me good bye with snow. More rested on less sleep, the morning walk was when dark and light parted ways until their next reunion. No rush. What goes around, comes around.

At times I ran. From nothing. To nothing. Without reason. Without race or time clock. No finish line. Unfinished lines. Pregnant with words. Carrying many books. Some mere seeds. Others moving to birth at their pace. Other may remain in me. Stillborn. Still to be born. More imagined than conceived. Yet other nuggets drop from me like nuts from a big nut job. Perhaps they will root. Hip Hip Hooray. They might inspire. A word heard. A well penned lick that sparks another’s fuse. Pen, prose, poem….uttered, sputtered, without shutter or stutter. Spoken clearly even if muddled before being showered with love, shaved with sassy, and spit shined by truth.

Words from the darkness that light the way. I do my best work in my darkness. Work in others’ darkness too. Holding their face to their own fires of bullshit and denial for I have been branded in that way. There are many here in the dark. Showing themselves themselves and sharing themselves to any that ask for a taste of their how and ways and means. Tasty morsels served up in the marinade they made along the way when blinded by the light. In the darkest rooms are the sweetest developments. The belittlers be little here. Demonize. Demon eyes. We are what we seek. We seek truth and light and balance and sharing. We are kind, have kindred, share kindling, and warm our cold and sorry asses around a circle of fire. Bon voyage. Bonnie lads and lasses dance in kilts, kill no more, take no shit, and understand the difference between pacifist and pass a fist.

I don’t have your answers. You can have mine if they work for you. My thoughts are clearly muddled on April Fools Eve. I ain’t kidding. No kidding. No kidding around. You can’t kid me. I am of the Feminine and I birth words injected into me in ways you can’t even imagine. Maybe you can. Bend over and let me bend you ear a bit and then you can bend my ear. Let’s jam. Can you hear the Circus Music? They are playing our song. Let’s dance with the devil with the blue dress on. Ensure your seams are straight. Seems straight to me. But then again, straight has a whole new definition when your thoughts are clearly muddled.

Let me be straight about this. I feel the negative. See it. Taste it. Know it. Positively, Absolutely, know the negative. Gotta know your enemy. Cause. Clauswitz knew that. Sun Tzu, too. Pogo knew better. Met the enemy and he is us. Me is us. I am you and you are he and we are he and we are all together. Coochie, Coochie, and a big Kook Kook Ka Choo. God Bless you, each and every one. Saw a man and he danced with his wife. Read another and he envied someone else’s pride in who and where they were. I was torn…to laugh or to cry at how sad and ironic that was. Laughing was too heartless. Crying would be wasteful. So I wrote about it and now you read about it. Maybe that is the right thing. I am not sure it matters what I feel. Maybe it is just enough to feel. Does not make me proud to feel. It could be worse though. It could be unclear and muddled. Am I making myself clear? Maybe I am muddled. Clearly so. So what?

Who Were Those Masked Children?

“Keep your Toe jam off the marbles.” Things I never thought I’d say moved to the column of things said thanks to time this week with my Grandkids. Veni, Vidi, Vici, grandchildren style. Events moved on their own accord and the last four or so days, it really is a bit of a blur, had the Grandkids as daily fixtures while their Mom and Dad tended to life issues. The grandkids inspire me and teach me.

The last week has been filled with learning. My daughter’s children taught me to appreciate. There is a character in Dean Koontz’s book “Odd Thomas” that lives in gratitude. When she wants a chocolate ice cream cone, she has it three days later. She waits for what she craves and appreciates it all the more. She came to mind when I gave my grandkids a lifesaver. One single lifesaver. They are taught to eat healthy and sugared treats are rare for them. Hence, they are savored. One especially active day I gave them more than one. Three to be exact. My Grandson, Ethan, was awed. “Wow. We had two already, Pop-Pop.” He gets it. Gratitude. Sometimes things are even sweeter when we wait for them. Gratitude is a lesson they live and I learn more and more. These kids appreciate.

They hear the music. Really hear it. It is there and heard and danced to, even in car safety seats. Especially Annie, the oldest of the three girls. She digs music, dance, and all things associated therewith. According to her latest report, her taste is music is already well honed and quite insightful, even at five years old. Elvis is her favorite artist. She gets far too little Elvis when her Mom drives. She gets a bunch when Pop-Pop is at the wheel. I enjoyed the danceability of “Burning Love” more this week than ever prior thanks to her gyrations. She helped me hear the music even more.

I learned about limits and how instinctive it is to test them. Meghan knows the rules and heads for the grey as much as possible. Meghan knows when Mom says enough is enough that enough is really enough. When she is told something will be taken away or such, it will happen. My Daughter is a bit like her Father in that regard. Meghan is a kid. A smart kid. She heads for the grey, tests it, and sees where the new barriers are. “The pink lipstick is off the table.” Another thing I said aloud and meant. Meghan tested with a mini-tantrum and heard, “The TV is next. It is up to you.” She settled in and earned time playing the marble game with her Pop-Pop. Her toe cleaning in tandem was a bit much and resulted in, well, you read that already.

From my first toe jam on marbles experience to a revisit to Peanut Butter and Jelly for lunch, the time with the grandkids was literally jam packed. (Come on, even you have to laugh at that!). There were trips to the Air Force Museum (where a new room was discovered and a return trip already promised), the library with its wonderful games, computers, and even books, the playground on the other side of the field, and the field itself. (Yes, there is free theme in those places…Pop-Pop is broke.) There was dancing and singing, stories, too many fruit snacks, too much TV, and the long way on drives so naps could be had. Meghan learned to do two thumbs up and say, “That’s what I’m talking bout, Baby”. Ethan reported his lunch choices from school, there were two choices each day. The one he remembered was the one he ate.

Ethan also showed me there are still cowboy hats out there. I wore one when I was a kid. Along with six-shooters and Texas talking, it was the wild west just east of the Garden State Parkway. With that hat, I was a cowboy. Wore it anywhere and every time possible. Turned out Ethan has a cowboy hat. His comes in the form of a Storm Trooper mask and costume. Same premise though. He wore it in the back seat of the car, on the porch ,to the dinner table, and anywhere and every time possible. He was a Storm Trooper (although I said he was a Cloudy Warrior and had to grow a bit more to be an actual Storm Trooper). The Wild West comes with light sabers now. I made a point of teaching him how to gallop when we went on a walk to the field where my dirt fort is. (He did not have his Storm Trooper mask on at the time but that would have work just as well. I can do light sabers.)

The kids still eat Cherrios just like I did as a kid. Sometimes from a bowl, other times from the box, and sometimes right off the table. They did not know Cherrios sponsored the Lone Ranger on Saturday mornings just before Rin Tin Tin (Shredded Wheat), Roy Rogers (Quik) and Sky King (Nabisco). I guess that wasn’t that interesting or important to them. Instead I combined something new to my spirituality, energy, Zen, new wave, what the hell is he into now, regiment, and their cereal choice and introduced them to Ti Cherrios. We moved the circles (how Zen fitting is that?) slowly through the air, parting the horse’s mane in tribute to heroes from yesteryear, and fed the youngest, Gracie, a Cheerio at a time. We took turns, shared, and played nice. New wave, old principles of just getting along.

I got along with them really well. They give hugs and kisses any time. Perhaps it is me. They just felt the need and gave what was needed. There was one moment when all of them except Gracie were on the porch playing with their cousin, Will. I had the door closed and was watching them through the window with Gracie. Gracie was on my lap, I was on the floor, and the two of us enjoyed the show that played together with Lego’s on the porch. At one point, Annie looked at the window where Gracie and I sat, crossed the porch, opened the door to the kitchen, peeked around the door, and said, “I love you, Pop-Pop”, closed the door, and returned to Legoland. She must have known I was hungry. She fed me. I needed it and it was a hell of a lot better than PB & J on its best day. It’s what for dinner. When we eat right.

Happy Birthday, Sis

I love my sister. Karen Marie Clair Van Wagner Agar. She understands family and what it means better than anyone. She misses my Dad everyday even though he passed away almost thirty years ago. She and my Mother lived together for decades and Karen did not kill my Mother. She and my Mother lived together for decades and Karen did not kill me.

Karen is one of my biggest fans. She survived having to take her little brother to the movies so Dad and Mom could have matinees. When my arm was broken in a fight (in first grade…this was Keansburg, after all), she dished out revenge on the culprit for all the residents of Maple and Main to see. On the sibling scale, she covered for more of my shenanigans than I did of hers….and she had a hell of a lot. She was in my wedding party and I was in hers.

We fought. We fought long and hard. We fought over why she was so mean to me. We fought over why I was such a pain in the ass to her. We fought over why she only had to wash the dishes and I had to dry them AND put them away. We fought over who was going to clean the house before Mom came home from work. We fought over if I really stole the dimes from her penny loafers. (They were PENNY loafers, asshole!) We fought over who won the last fight and who would win the next. Our love survived how much she pissed me off as a kid and that says a lot about love.

We huddled together like two people in a storm at times. She let me creep into her room at the darkest times cause she needed me. (That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.) We asked serious questions like who we would go with and why when they finally split. (They never did but Sis ended up with Mom anyway. Neener Neener Neener). We played Mouse Trap, Booby Trap, 500 Rummy, freeze tag, hide and seek, and roof tag (you had to see it to believe it).

She is outspoken about how proud she is of me. Yet she is the example of what home means. If I knocked on her door today, she would take me in. That is her way. She is family incarnate. I think it was Mark Twain that said a man is not really a man until his father dies. That sounded heartless to me….right up until my father died and I found out it was true. I was suddenly it. I didn’t have the place to go for advice….I WAS the place to go for advice. How the hell did that happen? Yet, I realize now that home was still an option for me. Home…that place where they take you in no matter what you did. Home was there…….and always has been……and always will be…..because of Sis.

I love her. I honest to truly love her. Dad said that family matters. He said it was what made the world safe and right. Family….stick together……get along. His daughter got the message and lives it. I tried to run away from home. My Sister never really let me. I understand that now. I love her.

Happy Birthday, Sis

Ostara 2

Enjoy the openness. Be outside and willing to feel the dirt. That is the yearning. That is the unsettledness. The earth beckons. Gaia stretches awake and calls to you. It is time for planting. Time for sitting in the sun. Time for savoring the buds and then the leaves and the blooms. Time for watching as young ones discover the flight of butterflies and the mastery of ants.

There has been one revolution since the Equinox and already you feel the light of the season. That is as it should be. For every time there is a season. Sing of it.

Reflect back to the playful nature of this time and then make it so again. There is much strength in all of you. This time fuels it. As the unbundled clothing frees the flesh, the flesh breathes deeper and deeper. You are less removed from nature. You draw back to roots that are there all the time but now seen when you are within. Open so that the air flows and sings and energizes. It will give you answers and love.

Stereotypes

Before they were stereotypes they were the people in my life. They were real before they were fictionalized, fantasized, anesthetized, vilified, elevated, deflated, and homogenized.

The shoe repair man that lived in the back room of his shop. A shop of so many shoes. Cast-offs, waiting pick-ups, forgotten, beyond hope, those under those other ones, ladies mixed with men and coupled with children’s….I saw something different each time and felt the effect of the collected. The appearance, leather vest, round rim glasses, silver ring of very little hair, the name, the way he moved, the way he remembered things…Hollywood casting would love his lovability and Jewish name.

The crusty mechanic. The darkest man in a lily-white town before rainbows were really valued. Chewing on what looked to be the same stogie, wearing the blue coveralls held together by decades of axel grease, concealed behind halves, fenders, that joist, a Model whatever on cinderblocks now home to a raccoon and close knit starlings, driveshafts, crankshafts, and potholes, and named Cookie. Stocky, eyes that smiled a split second before the face, arms like stubs, fingers that looked anything but what they were, agile, and that shuffling walk of one drop light on the head more than he ever wanted. His mechanical prowess was more rumored than evidenced, no one knew where he really lived, and the gas pumps didn’t and hadn’t for a long time. He smelled of fossil fuels and reeked with character. Curmudgeoned wise man with a red rag in his left pocket and a socket wrench looking for a home in his right hand.

The Irish Priest too old to function and too spry to be ignored. He drifted from absent-minded to brilliant and let the youngsters think they knew better. Then he helped them fix things. He was the power behind the throne and didn’t care as long as things were right. Everyone knew him. Everyone loved him. Everyone underestimated him. His grave is halfway between my grandparents and my parents…and I look for him just like I did when passing the Rectory that feels much lesser now.

Sister Mary Joseph John, the Bride of Christ worthy of the hand selection. Luminous. Intelligent. Hail Mary, Full of Grace Kelly. She inspired, quieted, and loved. She knew you and him and her but you were enough and always tried to be when ever she entered your thoughts. Any one in Habit got the respect you felt for her. You were one of many yet she made you feel one of one. She was one in a million yet claimed to be just one of many. You had her in Fifth Grade and know that heaven is a lot like Fifth Grade. You got all A’s except that one B and you have made it up to her in the three going on four decades since. You loved her. Not in that way. Not then. You still love her. She was as Feminine as they come. You were as studious and pious as you could be because she knew your best from your bullshit and demanded your best.

The short order cook at the Diner on the Highway. If he wasn’t there, he’d be in prison. He was Navy, or liked that Tattoo that looked like Popeye’s and peeked out just under his rolled up undershirt sleeve. You wondered if his hat came crooked. You knew you would crush and bend yours the same way if you ever entered that world. He didn’t speak but you heard who he liked and who he didn’t loud and clear. You were in the like column, most of the time. You were semi-regular…just on the edge of his give a shit meter. The flipper never left his hand and he never called it a spatula. He knew over easy real well and dismissed special orders with a look hotter than any grill any where. The few times he came out from the opening in the wall and had a cup of coffee were your moments behind the curtain. You wanted to call him Cookie but were smart enough to shut the hell up and just drink your coffee. You hoped he didn’t notice you put cream in it, wussy, and took your next cup black. Left it that way long after he put out his cigarette and disappeared into his world.

They weren’t in Walmart today. They won’t be tomorrow either. They are still real though. Keep living the dream. Another cup of Jo, please. I got a date with an Angel and the roads are slicker than snot. One more for the road.

Ostara 1

The time of joy is here. Feel the energy of re-birth in you, around you, and of you. The sleeping is over and all wake up refreshed. Feel the rain as nurturing and sweetly refreshing. Take in the light to better see in the darkness. Breathe deeply for new air comes with the saplings and buds. It is a time a life. A time of joy. A time of dancing.

All things are better now and will continue to be. Community is stronger and bigger. The SOURCE sees and smiles and laughs and loves. The beasts embrace their yoke and work eagerly from sun-up to sun-down. There is singing in hearts and minds and souls. The slumber inside and our moves away with a stretch of the meta-physical and the last yawn of sleep.

Surround yourself with purity and light. Wash off the dust of doubt. Purge the sludge of the unknown. See the answers and share them. This is a wondrous time and healing is underway. There is healing energy in all of you. Share it. Turn it on yourself first. It makes you stronger as well as better.

Feel the kiss of beginnings long awaited. There is sanctuary at hand and you are it. Together. Believe in yourself and those like you. Act. Love. Trust.

Croquet

Summer is a little different in Jersey. As a kid in the Garden State in the 60s, my childhood was exactly like yours…only different. Sure, we had all those summery things. Days at the Beach and sweet memories of too much sun too soon and peeling until the Fourth of July. Opened windows and strategically placed fans in the futile fight against oppressive humidity. Crickets and the wonder of where they went when it snowed. Adults circled in Lawn Chairs with cold beers and warm stories. All those things…with a bit of a twist.

It might have been because of Saint Anne’s School and the Ladies in Black. That was surely a factor. They were Nuns. Sisters of Mercy. The very concept of Nuns. Take a group of women, deny any aspect of sex, house them all together, dress them in black, and put them in charge of children all day. Steven King could do a series of books on that and have enough material left over for a weekly talk show. Saint Anne’s School was Mayberry meets the Other World Kingdom. The Nuns set the bar high, believed in home work, and lived to teach. Catholic school is not for mamby-pambys. We had that for nine months and then were paroled each summer. Too much time off for kids with way too much energy and no Nuns in sight…add in two working parents, shit on TV, not enough money for camp and you had a recipe for disaster on a grand scale. The prisoners were released without any guards. We were loose cannons.

Of course, my parents tried to keep us busy. A combination of keep them busy and prayer….they rushed home from work every night and called a still standing house with no emergency vehicles success. We had chores. Mom wanted the house not roped off as a crime scene and clean when she got home from work at 3:30. That meant Damage Control began at 3 every day. We whirling dervished from house destroyed to “hi, Mom, how was your day” with amazing efficiency. We removed the bodies, shooed the animals, picked up debris, put the furniture back in the right places in the right rooms, swept, vacuumed, showered, dressed, found a book to pretend to read, and waited for Mom’s carpool with a look on our faces like the Vienna Boys Choir. Most days, it worked really well. Sometimes she was less than satisfied with our efforts. Still, more often than not, we were successful in what was not discovered.

As the summer progressed, Mom and/or Dad added a few more chores to fill the day. Usually based on the evidence. First offense, tend the garden. Next offense, cut the grass and rake the yard once a week until we got our heads out of our asses. By the end of the summer, we were to dig a canal linking the Raritan bay to the Red Sea just to keep busy.

It was not all penance and punishment. My parents wanted us to have some regular fun too. I had my brother’s hand me down baseball glove that was well loved twice over. My sister and I had beach passes. Lots of time spent in and near the Raritan Bay. There were wiffle bats. My sister turned out to be a master of the cruel but sickly amusing sport of Lightening Bug baseball. Her laugh when their little butts flared across the yard was as beautiful as it was perverse. Next to her pee stain on Lane 6 at Harmony Bowl, it was her best moment in sports.

We had outside kid games. Tag. Freeze Tag. Hide and Seek. Those had some variations as did everything in the only state that sounds even more truthful when you drop the New from the name. We combined the relatively innocent One-Two-Three Red light with the rather sinister Mumpries. When you were “it” in Mumpries, when you were caught, you were basically pummeled until you counted to ten loud and clear. Combine that with One-Two-Three Red Light and the level of intensity increased dramatically. One of the most unusual Jersey spins on anything, however, involved Croquet.

Croquet has the best press agents in the world. It has a brand. The very image of the game. Pastoral. Peaceful. Almost regal. A fine gathering of fine people playing a fine game on a fine summer day. Each dressed sweetly and with great dignity. White sweaters with the Gale Storm, Yale ain’t just a lock, tube sock as an upper garment fashion. Lads and Lassies conversing quietly at each takes their turn in a game more about enjoying company rather than competition. That is what my parents thought when they were gifted a Croquet set. Another hand me down that promised summer sweetness.

It turned out a tad bit different on Exit 117 and just off of Highway 36 at the corner of Maple and Main. Croquet was not quite ready for that Twilight Zone. My parents should have known better. The first clue should have been the dangers of any sport that involved mallets and driving spikes into the ground. It calmed for about as long as it took to for a Good Humor bar to melt in the Jersey summer sun. We were more Dead End Kids than Little Rascals.

Dirty Eddie, one of the older kids, found the sexual connotations of Croquet. That did not surprise us. Eddie found sexual connotations in Howdy Dowdy, Superman, Ethel and Lucy, and most cloud formations. Dirty Eddie, really from the Dead End street, enjoyed putting his nice big ball though the hole thingy. He routinely asked the girls if they liked the size of his mallet and to please “be gentle with my balls, Ladies”. Before I knew what a slime ball was, I knew Dirty Eddie was one. He showed up, muscled his way into the game, and insisted on being the blue ball guy. Since Dirty Eddie was the first kid in Keansburg with a switchblade, he got his way, blue ball wise. We tolerated him because we were busy with a whole new level of this wonderful game. One Maple Avenue was the birthplace of Extreme Croquet.

We only played Extreme Croquet a few times. There were kinda rules. We were really flexible on that though since the game developed, some might say deteriorated, on its own. Mallets became giant hammers to drive wooden balls across the yard. Croquet became a contact sport. Elimination. No Marques of Queensbury rules. The game developed with each new discovery. I think it was my sister that discovered Super Bunking. No gentle tap here. Super Bunking involved pressing your ball lower than your opponents. With the right angle and a hard enough swing, the opponent’s ball went airborne.

Keansburg geophysics were perfectly suited for Super Bunking. Main Street was concrete. Long and flat…ideal for bunks measured in blocks. The asphalt of Maple Avenue was less desirable due to parked cars and narrower curbs. The sewer system on Main Street also promised elimination since time to dig the ball from the openings counted as disqualification. While people shagged Nuclear bunks, Mallets became swords and jousting sticks. The Jets and the Sharks fought for rule while Patty next door asked Doctor Berman if her ball passed his office. Extreme Croquet was a very fluid event.

So fluid that Mom’s carpool arrived home one day in the middle of a game that started sometime early that morning. I am not sure what set her off. She described the scene in so many different ways that night at dinner. Jousting. Polo. Sword fights. Gang wars. Maybe Glen and his brother sword fighting with mallets on the roof of the shed lit her fuse. Could have been the jousting match with the bicycles and mallets pointed to kill that forced the car she was in up onto the sidewalk. It might have been the alleged report of a Gang War at that damn house on the corner. (I think that was fabricated). My money was on the busted Wind Window on Studebaker parked by the PAL building. Something sure got her mad. She banned Extreme Croquet from any oxygen based planet that day. She was out of the car quicker than an Nuclear Bunked croquet ball. She was not happy. She had that “What the Fuck?” look on her face. Her hands were raised louder than her voice.

The rest of the kids disappeared like cockroaches when the lights come on. My sister and I had to gather up what was left of the Crocket Set. Much of it was missing it seemed. Sis fished a mallet and two balls from the tree in front of the Viking House. One mallet turned up on the roof of the shed a few weeks later. Rumor has it that the red ball caught the bus to Perth Amboy on Carr Avenue and showed up years later on “The Sopranos”. Unfortunately, Tony and the Bada-Bing crew cut that scene due to its violent nature.

Most of the survivors of Extreme Croquet suspect the blue ball and its mallet went south with Dirty Eddie. Most of the croquet sets in the Burg were sans those very same things. Dirty Eddie got around. My therapist recommends I paint those images in crayon and burn them while saying a decade of the Rosary. That seems sacrilegious as well as hokey. I shall embrace my nightmares. If captured by Hannibal Lecter, I will know it could be worse. Hannibal could be Dirty Eddie with years of experience and a collection of mallets and blue balls.

Croquet with a Jersey twist is quite the thing to behold. If you ask someone about their limp and they inform you it is an old Croquet injury, Ask them “What exit?”

Presto Lunch

Just tiles on a sidewalk and now even they are gone. An oddity. More joke than truth, we jumped on them as children and opened sasame’d their name. “Presto, Lunch!”. Tiles. Like bathhouses or something Greek or Roman or special. Marker. Someone thought it out. Permanence. Not just a Diner. Hope. Ambitions. Dreams. Opened to the public. Proof positive in cement of staying power and good food. Presto Lunch. Just off the Boardwalk itself. Right around the corner from the movie house. Feed the crowd before. Feed them after. Feed them well. Feed them for as long as you can and then your children will feed them and you will be the one that made it happen. Then their children will carry that forward and their children too. Generations from now, they will know you. That first signed dollar bill by the cash register ordered special from Sears. Your first not second hand thing. National. Nothing but the best. Then the tiles.

Art. Craftsmanship. Class. Presto Lunch. Weather any storm. Handle any traffic. This was more than a Diner. It was your Diner. A new life in a new town.

You even hired a waitress. Not even family. You were an entrepreneur. She needed the job. She had the baby coming and all. It was the right thing to do. She was a looker. That helped.

She left after the baby was born. She married that guy Buddy. They came in now and then. Business wasn’t as good as you planned. Maybe a job on the side. Then that was not even enough. Soon, the bills were greater than the receipts. The Cash Register was the first thing to go. Paper and pencil did better…with negative numbers that is. Soon, you have to give it up. It was a big dream anyway. Too big for this town. It was kinda busy in the summer and damn near dead in the winter. Location. Location. Location. Three swings and a miss. The signed dollar went in a box. The box went in a closet. It was sad.

No one saw you cry that night. Standing on those tiles. The ones that felt so good and now felt so dead. No one saw you cry. No one saw you kick them. No one knew you wanted to rip them up. Ashamed. Angry. No one saw. No one would know.

Each time you saw them after that, you wanted to see them less and less. Soon you stopped going there. Soon you stopped talking about Presto Lunch at all. Soon you kinda talked about it but only the good stuff. The eggs that tasted just right. The burgers as good as any in those crap places on the highway. The dinners that were real dinners for real people in a real town. It was more than a Diner. It was your home and you knew the people that came in for coffee and a roll with butter.

You are gone now. The tiles lasted longer than your Diner. The tiles lasted longer than you. The tiles are gone now. So is that waitress you hired that time when you had the new hopes, the shiny cash register, and the signed dollar bill. You are not forgotten though. I remember. That is the Magic of Presto Lunch even though I never went there. You tried. You did your best. That is enough.

I love Diners. Magic places. Good food. I like my eggs over easy and hash browns. I bet your hash browns was awesome.

The Beauty Shop

It was really just a converted house behind the Keansburg-Middletown National Bank and across from Modern Pharmacy. Hollywood Beauty Salon…complete with its own neon sign and kinda pink shingles. It was the place the Ladies go. Ladies taking care of Ladies. It was all Feminine, all the time. Sights. Sounds. Even the smell. There was a smell there that was not nice. Yet it was that smell. That smell I adjusted to so I could be there and be told I was a good boy. Sometimes they noticed me. Mom was proud when they did. That was nice. Sometimes they did not notice me. Mom was Queen when they did not. That was nice, too.

I think that is why she liked going. Her and the other ladies like her. They liked being Queen once in a while. Hair done their way. Someone tending them. Kindred willing to wash their hair like servants to the Royal Court. No dishes in the sink. No dirty clothes waiting. No picking up after themselves. No floor supervisor ensuring the line ran smoothly. No din of the waxing machines at the Tulip. Nothing but sitting and being tended. Plus select offspring. Only those smart enough to sit quietly where told and read magazines that had nothing for men.

This was so different than the barber shop. Barber shop smells were mine. I was part of them. Barber shop smells are embraced. Beauty shop smells are endured. Here, I was outside the smells. Didn’t like the smells here….remembered them as pungent…even stinky. Adjusted to them like beast to the harness. Something to tolerate…for as long as directed.

The Beauty Shop was foreign. This was a Their place. I was tolerated here…if. If. One word……so many directives. If not, there were consequences. If successful, even the rewards were different. No lollypop. No baseball updates. No burp of man lotion on the neck. Here the reward was petting. A pinch on the cheek. A pat on the head. A hug to a strange bosom. They did not call you “sport” here. They talked about you more often then to you. Here you were on display. The Queen’s subject. Evidence of Her prowess. Proof positive of a good boy in a place where Ladies tended Ladies and maleness was watched carefully.

Mom went less often than she wanted and took me more often than she would have liked. She needed that time. She deserved that time. She included me…because I was her son. She sent me to the Barber shop and knew I would behave. She took me to the Beauty Shop and made sure I behaved. I was groomed, inside and out.

Ostara

We made it!

Ostara is celebration. We made it through the dark and the cold. It is the joyous reconnection to the belief that all things survive. We feel life in Ostara.

This feeling of resurrection and re-birth crosses time and space. Ostara is rooted in a time when winters killed. The cold battered, land was barren, game was hidden, food stores close to depletion, and hope felt distant. In winter, nature pruned. Many things died as we huddled in the cold and prayed to survive. In that darkness, death was all around and we wondered if it was our time. We wondered if we were strong enough to make it. Winter touched our connection with life as many things moved beyond this realm. Light returned in even the smallest dose and we welcomed it. We emerged from hiding and hibernation. Our ancestors greeted the barest hint of thaw with dance and fire and joy. They saw the animals move forth again and mate to begin another circle around the sun. Food would soon grow on tree and bush and more. Soon, there would be much to gather and share again.

If the Wheel of Life has a starting point, it is Ostara. We looked to the heavens and felt safe again…selected to live another cycle. It was time to gather. Some prepared for planting. They honed the plows and assembled together in a joyous pre-game show for the work ahead. Just as the very survival we celebrated was linked to the last harvest and gathering, our continued existence was again linked to the abundance that would soon return and be ours to share as tribe. Ostara is fertility and beginning and more.

Eggs showed in nests and burrows. Bulbs birthed buds of beauty. Bodies felt warm and encouraged touch. Eggs became magical on the Equinox, March 21, when they stood on end on that one special day. A balancing act that defied the known and called us to feel forces much greater than our earthly vessels. The Gods and Goddess made eggs dance as the light returned.

Soon, some named their Gods and Goddesses. One of the first so named is Eostre, the German Goddess of Spring, for whom Ostara is named. Eostre is linked to the East, where the Sun rose and shined brighter and earlier as spring warmed the ground. Eostre also links fittingly to Shining and Glorious. The celebrations were rich and pure with dancing, mating, and joy. Ostara is nature’s call to multiply. Rabbits and their impressive fertility symbolized the sheet magick of reproduction and life.

Passover is honored in this time. Life and survival emphasized again. Easter is marked in this time and the story of life over death literally. The theme is common…life celebrated. Ostara reminds us that light and joy return and are to be shared by all.

My Father's Son

Below the emotions are the truth. The opportunity to understand. The chance to truly accept that what you feel about him is really about you. To embrace what you feel and why you feel it. To be in the darkness, weakness, sadness, disappointment, frustration, and anger and feel them for what they are….your issues. To peel back and then peel back again. Lashing self and ripping through the reaction to the catalyst. That is the right thing to do.

The truly human thing is to know that it is all about you. Then to own it and see the chance to be even better. To do even more. To offer even more. To stand by. To be. To continue to reach and love and embrace and welcome.

I wanted to be less. Wanted to speak it in other ways. Wanted to act on it. Wanted to be righteous as well as right. I wanted to be mad. At him. At what he does and does not do. At what he is and what he is not. At what he takes. The proof mounted and then mounted more. Others saw it too. Others felt it too. Witnesses. Evidence increased. I was in the volcano. Became the volcano. Then went into my passion and owned it. Wrestled it to submission and held it to the mirror of my soul.

It is almost right now. Right in what I feel and why I feel it. That is just the beginning. Now it is time to see the opportunity. To know how to do even more and make myself proud of this moment by rising above it. To dive into the greatness of it and soar. It is about me. What I feel about him is about me. What I do with what I feel is about me. He needs me to be more than human. He needs me to be more than what I was and all that I can be. I need that too. I need to be better. Truthful to self and all. To feel totally. I shall face myself….and be myself.

So I write to myself about myself and read and then re-read. To make sure I hear myself. To help me learn and grow. To help me be better than I am. These are my words to me about me. It is always about me. Even when I know for sure it is about him. Especially when I know it is about him. After all, I am his Father.

My love for him is about me. How I deal with him is about me. He needs my best and I shall ensure he gets it. Whenever I wish he were better, I know I need to be better. I need to be at my best…so he can be at his. Fathers lead….by example. All the time. I need to show him my best. What he learns from me is about him. What I teach him by example is about me. It is all about me. I want the best for him…that means I have to give him my best.

The emotions will pass. The choice of Fatherhood is forever. My father taught me that...by example. Sometimes he treated me like a son. Sometimes he treated me like a man. Even when I was screwing things up….he let me be my own man. He prayed for me to make the right choices. He did his best to let me be. He was there for me. He did his best. I shall do mine.

Shake It Up

I have been moving too slow. Too easy. Too calm. Patience moved to something less. Peace moved to something less. A thing of watching rather than doing. A thing of bored rather than content. My passion got mad at me. Mad for moving as if the river is molasses. Mad for knowing the words and wondering if the time is right. My passion kicked me today. The kick to feel and then do and then feel and then do again. I shall do and show the doing. I shall write and share the writing. I shall…..be. In motion.

Knowing where life is begins where knowing where life is fake. I know where life is fake. It was where I watched and waited to feel. Waited to taste truth and passion and my own connection with life. Time for the bike ride and the curb painting and the words in the book that is Maurice’s memoriam. Time to do rather than wait. I have been moving too slow.

It is easy to pick up the pace. It is easy to feel. Shake things up just enough to feel the shake up. So I wrote before the walk today. Shuffled the routine a bit. Wrote the words. Then revised them until they were truth rather than just words. Then the walk and then digging in the dirt that is garden in stasis. Then being. Feeling. Knowing. Just trusting that I am touching self rather than waiting. Just touching and honoring what I feel and who I am and what is right about this moment and the ones that come and the ones that come after those. Now is what we have. How we use it is what we are. Moving should be slow at times. Moving should be moving faster at other times.

The back yard looks good. It looks ready. It was tired of waiting too. So I dug in and dug it. Dig it? It is the best garden ever in my back yard. It is already better than last year because it learned about itself last year. It learned from what worked and what didn’t work. It is a damn fine garden already. Good dirt. Real dirt. It is ready for the seeds, weeds, and deeds that make gardens gardens. Me, too. After all, Spring is a verb too. Time for a little action. I am moving a bit faster and digging it.

Pony Boy

When it comes right down to it, I am pretty childish. At least, more childish as of late. Dirt forts. Going out of my way to the dirt forts on my morning walks. Galloping. Just like I used to as a kid. Galloped everywhere. On Trigger, of course. My first bike, the Sears Red Machine written about in “Jersey Sure”, was Trigger more than it was a bike or a police car or the Man From U.N.C.L.E car, or the Batmobile…the real one….from the TV Show that otherwise sucked. I galloped a lot.

I galloped again the last few days. Only for a bit. More than most guys my age though and that is kinda cool in my twisted book of logic and magick tricks for children of all ages. I galloped. From the path to the dirt fort. Just after the walk, just before picking up the rocks, and just before heading back to the house. Galloped. Just like days of old. Something about horses got to me then and ever since. Never owned a horse. That is something other people do. I was not ever one of those horse owning people. My horses came from Movies and Television…and my head.

Equine speaks loudly. Proud animals. Noble beasts. Power, strength, dignity, and other things that inspire. The feel of tack and harnesses and bits. The smell of all of that. There is some level of control and yet freedom. Trigger was domesticated yet primal at the same time. There is a balance…a beauty…a magick in that. So I galloped a bit the last few days. The rider, the ridden, and more.

Thought of the Beatles too. At least one of their songs. Let It Be. I am learning that lesson. More and more. Letting things come. Trusting. Feeling the freedom that comes with trust in that Force that makes all things happen. My Higher Power. Trusting that I do not have to make things happen…just let things happen. I just have to walk when it feels right. Talk when it is right. Write from where all things are right. Just be. Gallop when that Higher Power spurs me on and feel what it was, what it is, and what it all means. Giddiup. I guess I am kinda childish. I plan to be even more childish. Gotta remember the lessons from Kindergarten. Gotta be willing to play and laugh and sing out of tune and drum and color outside the lines.

The bad guys might have other plans. They might try to ambush me. In fact, I know some of their plans already. They haven’t got a chance. I know how to gallop, have a short cut to the dirt fort, and wear an almost white hat. The bad guys are bit players in my life. No kidding.

Easy Peace

Beyond sanguine songbooks and saccharine salutes.

Rationalizations and root-toot-toot toots.

Flags planted firmly on hills which to die.

Jets in formations one less than five.

Twenty-one guns loaded with blanks.

One single man, one row of tanks.

Walls that divided, walls that did fall.

Crumbling, Crumbling. Crumbling all.

Uniforms buried as more we wake up.

Peace inside you and then Peace inside us.

Arms into plowshares and hands holding hands.

Peace is that easy, once we all stand.

Penny King

Everyday Epics.

Stop counting the change.

Flow with the flowathon.

What’s in a name?

Show spoken Words.

Bend into the curved.

Straight one in five.

Roads will be heard.

A few minutes with.

Turn of a phrase.

Play circus music.

Parade unafraid.

Floats like flotillas.

Tortillas are bread.

What’s going on there?

Inside that head.

Empire Of Dirt

I felt the earth move the other day. Actually, no. There was an earthquake in Utah the other day and everything in my home was devastated. Actually, no. Yet I walked through my house and felt those truths. Imagined the shaking and quaking. Saw the stuff in a pile of rubble. Was sad for a few moments. Only a few though. Was sad. Cause I like my stuff.

My Elvis stuff. Gifts over the years. Books. Pictures. Records. Trinkets and mementos. Gifts over the years. People know I love Elvis. His music comforts me. There is something about him that gets me at my core. He is as much as part of my life today as he was when I first heard him on “50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can’t Be Wrong”. Sure I was just a kid when my parents gave me that first record player and that album along with Elvis’ Christmas Album. (Stuff have both of those records….part of my stuff.) Yes, initially I liked Elvis because of my hero worship for my big brother. Same reason I liked the Yankees and joined the Air Force. Yes, it is true my Masters and Doctoral work was on topics related to the King of Rock N Roll. Along the way, Elvis became mine and Elvis stuffs makes me feel good.

Other stuff too. Life stuff. Furniture. Pictures. Dishes. A clock that was my Father’s for twenty five years of blue collar hell. Hats. A lamp like the one from “A Christmas Story”. Yankee stuff. A monkey like the one that I had back before my first Elvis album. DVDs. CDs. Records. Vinyl ones and a stereo system with a turntable and everything. An autographed picture of Beaver. Another one of Roy Rodgers. Even one of Vanna White cause I shot craps with her….twice. She is nice. Clothes. Lots of clothes. Not the Air Force Uniform. That was buried just yesterday on another guy for another reason. Suits though. From another lifetime and occasional times now. Shoes. One pair just slightly younger than that first Elvis album that still fit. Was married in those. Kinda like Beatle boots. More books. Televisions. All those wires and boxes and remotes so that I can watch stuff new and old and all points in between should I wish, when I wish, and all that stuff. Pots and pans and dishes. My favorite room in the whole world. Not the one with the pots and pans and stuff. Another room. Called a porch, kinda like a sun room, but more heaven on earth for me. That room and its table where I have coffee and the chair so good for naps and the windows that are like Wendy’s windows and are the best thing about the house and the house was cool even before that room and those windows brought a piece of outside inside. Even outside stuff. The Sanctuary and garden and shed with all those smells of garages and sheds.

I walked though and pictured it all gone. Rubble because of the earthquake. I was sad. For a few moments. Then life cheered me up. My own. That is the one I know best everyday. Other lives too. Family. Of course. Friends. Strangers. Animals. Trees. Life. The stuff was rubble. Pangs came. Went too. Life matters. Stuff doesn’t. Didn’t think about insurance. Thought about less. Felt the power of that one line from the one song written by one guy and sang by lots of others but sang best by Johnny Cash if you ask me. “You can have it all…..my Empire of dirt.” I like my stuff. Bottom line though…..it is an Empire of dirt. Not too big as empires go. Bigger than some, smaller than others. Valued by me……lots. Lots less lately. I like stuff. Just understand more and more that it doesn’t matter. Could be gone in a second, will be gone in a second even if it outlasts me since I will be gone in a second before it, after it, with it, or without it. So I like it. Enjoy it. Just don’t need it and will get a lot less of it as time goes on. Life is good. Life matters. Life is the true value of what we have right now and what matters. Life.

Didn’t really have an earthquake but sure was “All Shook Up”. I have life all around me. My stuff is cool stuff. I can just feel and see beyond it….way beyond it…..a bit more everyday. You can have it all……my Empire of dirt. Will sell some of it since the IRS wants a bunch more cash than I have and plan to get. They are the Kings of the Hill when it comes to Empires of dirt. Me? I will listen to the King of Rock N Roll, piss on the Kings of the Hill, be the King of my own world, and have tons more cause I care about stuff tons less.