Reply to an old friend who thinks I should write a book

You remember Pres. Kimball's preface to his Miracle of Forgiveness, wherein he quotes Job to explain his own reluctance to write: "O, that mine adversary would write a book!" 

The fact of the matter is that I have already written several books, booth non-fiction and fiction, covering my years as a child, as a clown, as a missionary in Thailand, as a radio announcer -- even as a homeless person (I was homeless for several years after returning from Thailand in 2010). I could never interest an honest agent to take them on, or a publisher to look at them. I don't even know where most of those manuscripts are anymore. I know my ex-brother in law has one that I sold to him for a few thousand dollars many long years ago, and I have another one or two slowly crumbling to dust in an old suitcase of mine. I have no interest in resurrecting them.

I no longer believe I have anything of value to contribute to the world of literature in the form of a book-length work. I also believe my timericks are as ephemeral as a bubble. They should not be trapped between the covers of a book, like a butterfly pinned to a piece of blotting paper in someone's collection. 

My master plan, if you can call it that, is to continue to write timericks and little nano-memoirs as the mood hits me, to be shared with friends and family, and to be collected on my blog site. I now have a list of about 20 professional journalists that receive my daily emailed timericks, at their own request -- it may be that one day one of those journalist/fans will be in a position to hire me to produce such work on a regular basis for their newspaper and pay me for it. That is my ambition, when it comes to writing -- not a book, but a paid position producing my topical crambo. 

And can I be just a little bit blunt for a second with you? You are not the first friend to implore me to turn my hand to writing a book; but in every case, those of my friends who have counseled me to do so have absolutely no experience in doing so themselves. They have no idea the amount of work and stress involved in producing a 300-page manuscript and then peddling it to blase publishers. I have had that experience, and it is not pleasant, And I don't really want to do it again. 

But I welcome any other suggestions you may ever have as to how to monetize my peculiar talents. I don't wish to discourage you or anyone from suggesting ways and means for me to pick up a few more spare spondulicks with my quill. 

And I do appreciate you taking the time to write out your suggestions to me. It touches me deeply that there are still friends who feel the need to counsel me for my own good, despite my lackadaisical and cynical ways. 

God bless you for that . . . 

3 Nephi 2:15

  And their curse was taken from them, and their skin became white like unto the Nephites.

3 Nephi 2:15

If you think the scriptures maintain

that skin color can be a stain,

I think you will find

that God's colorblind; 

distinctions are mankind's own bane. 

3 Nephi 1:5

  But there were some who began to say that the time was past for the words to be fulfilled, which were spoken by Samuel, the Lamanite.

3 Nephi 1:5

The time for miracles is past, the word of God expired;

so say all the experts who think promptness is required.

Rational consideration is their bread and butter;

putting God on timetables, so when He's late they mutter.

The Lord of all the universe punches no time clock,

and like the thieving night prowler he'll give experts a shock!

 

See the pretty bauble

"Now, someone has found one more way to keep family members occupied and away from what matters most—it is something called Pokémon Go.  I don’t understand this one so don’t ask me about it.  I just know it is one more thing that prompts young people to look down at their smart phones rather than looking up to see the beautiful creations of God’s wonderful world or even someone they may want to meet, date, and marry with whom they could have a real-world relationship that results in eternal blessings."

M. Russell Ballard 

See the pretty bauble, child; come play with it awhile.

It will make you happy as your standards I beguile.

I have many kickshaws that will nibble at your days,

isolate you from your friends and beneficial ways.

Games and tinseled vanity I offer in profusion;

am I to blame if all it does is lead you to confusion?

There's hardly anyone who doesn't fall for my ripe schemes,

and when they do I take from them their comfort and their dreams.

Whether it be Pokemon or other sly diversion,

I delight to take you on a meaningless excursion! 

The Pumpkins

When you follow Hennepin Avenue east towards St Paul, it turns into Larpenteur Avenue once it hits Lauderdale.

When I still had the dew behind my ears, our family drove down Larpenteur the Sunday before Halloween each year to pick out pumpkins.

For reasons I cannot explain clearly, this was an outing my dad readily agreed to without any growls or feints. Perhaps he enjoyed the simplicity of driving straight ahead, without worrying overmuch about traffic lights or gridlock. Perhaps he liked the bucolic countryside that was Larpenteur Avenue back in those days -- truck farms, greenhouses, and the U of M's experimental fields. My mother, also, found the trip less trying than most other sojourns in the car; she looked out the window at the mellow fields without offering a single driving tip.

We would pull up to the lot that had the biggest pile of pumpkins to begin our search for the perfect Cucurbita pepo. My sisters were always satisfied with something round and well-behaved; but I would scout around for misfits -- lopsided or oval or bulging in the wrong places. Since my carving skills were practically nil, I found that these misbegotten squashes could be turned into weirdly creepy jack-o-lanterns with just a few inept slashes.

Pumpkins securely deposited in the trunk, dad would walk over to the crude wooden stall and drop three quarters into the tin can. I never once saw anyone manning a stall on these Sunday trips. They were either at church, or inside their homes napping or watching a football game. But every stall lay abandoned on Sundays, relying on the Honor System.

At home the pumpkins were put on the basement steps until after school on Halloween, when we kids would joyfully wield the old steak knives mom gave us (so dull they hardly cut through butter) to disembowel our pumpkins and carve the most hideous features into the orange ribbed skin that we could think of.

An interesting sidelight I recall is that mom would only lay the Pioneer Press down before we began our attacks. She claimed it was more absorbent than the Minneapolis newspapers. She also used the Pioneer Press for cleaning fish and to line the parakeet's cage. The Minneapolis papers were saved for the paper drive.

To this day I associate Halloween not with gaudy costumes or bags bulging with candy -- but with the smell of singed pumpkin from the candle flames inside each one of our creations. There was something archaic and druidic about those flickering specks of light streaming from the hewn grimaces of our pumpkins, and the odor of roasting pumpkin flesh mingled with stale candle wax as the wick burned down gave me a delicious shiver that wasn't quite terror, but wasn't quite comfort either . . .

Today I live in Senior Citizen housing, which is nice and quiet. But on Halloween it's too quiet, and I sure miss messing with the innards of a big fat pumpkin.

Oh well, they don't get the Pioneer Press out here anyways.

Out with the old

"While there may be value in decluttering our lives of material things we no longer need, when it comes to things of eternal importance—our marriages, our families, and our values—a mind-set of replacing the original in favor of the modern can bring profound remorse."

Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Out with the old and in with the new

is tempting for a man to do;

new job, new wife, new car -- yessir!

He changes all in such a blur.

And women are not much exempt

from treating old things with contempt.

New clothes; new shoes; new lifestyle -- wow!

The past is not a sacred cow.

But just imagine our chagrin

if God should want to trade us in! 

And so we'd better mend our ways,

and stick with those from early days! 

Helaman 14:25

 And many graves shall be opened, and shall yield up many of their dead; and many saints shall appear unto many. Helaman 14:25

When the graves were opened and the Saints began to sing,

unbelievers didn't see a single blessed thing.

They said it was hysteria or demons or debauch --

anything, the Gospel truth to permanently scotch. 

But comes the Resurrection, when all the sinners wake,

and those who scoffed will freely own they made a big mistake.

For flesh and bone will once again unite for all to see,

Because the Savior Jesus Christ gave up his life freely.

He bought us with his sacred blood so Satan could not drag

us down to Hell; we each now wear the Lamb of God's price tag! 

My Just Desserts

I have haunted thrift stores. Not antique stores, where they have cute little items to brighten up a room tastefully. But down and dirty thrift stores, where the table lamps are cracked and the tables lean like drunks and the books are cheap and plentiful and dog-eared. 'Antiques Roadshow' would never touch these places with a barge pole.

I moved into Senior Citizen housing last December and have slowly been filling up my apartment with the thrift store detritus from other people's abandoned lives. I thought I was past feeling any sympathetic vibrations from the cheap junk I brought home, but some nights as I gaze at the weary throw rug in the living room or settle into my anemic recliner that groans like a metal viaduct about to collapse I sense the sadness of defeat and demise in these items. It chills me.

So today I decided I would make my last trip to the thrift store, to pick up a glass candy dish for one of the shabby end tables I have next to my swayback couch. Then never go back to one of those places again. I've got enough knick-knacks to last me until I'm pushing up daisies. If I need something else I'll get it on Amazon.com.

As I passed the chipped enamel dishes and glassware I saw my mother's cookie jar. The exact same ceramic jar with different kinds of cookies molded on it, with a walnut knob to lift the top off. But it couldn't be my mother's cookie jar; for it would have to be over sixty years old, plus it was here in Utah and my mother's jar was located in Minnesota. And I had broken hers, and caught hell for it.

As I stared at it, gaping like a carp, the aromas of my mother's cookies winkled my nose . . .  

She, of course, made all her own cookies -- as did everyone else who considered themselves a bona fide housewife. Store bought cookies were for orphans. I never got to taste an Oreo until I was in high school.

Her oatmeal raisin cookies were the texture of velvet. And nothing this side of heaven will ever match the joy of biting into a chocolate chip cookie when the chips were still slightly molten. I dunked them in a glass of milk, and if they started to disintegrate, so what? The sludge in the glass was just about as good as the cookies!

At Christmas she went wild with spritz cookies. She had a dozen vials of sprinkles; a slew of food colors in little teardrop shaped plastic bottles; and several different kinds of icing that would bring a smile to an icicle. And she gave all of them away to the neighbors or kept them hidden for when company came. I fought my cousins like a rabid honey badger just to get a hand full of spritz crumbs!

One winter afternoon, long after the Christmas holidays, when the snow was a sodden lump of gray crystals and cabin fever had made me heedless of peril, I took my mother's cookie jar down from the top of the refrigerator to see if there was anything leftover from the Holidays in it. As I brought it down I fumbled -- it slipped and crashed onto the linoleum floor.

The panic and tears, the recriminations and hairbrush applied to a tender young derriere, need not concern us here. It all happened long years ago, in a time and place that no longer exists -- except in my brittle memory.

The price they wanted for that cookie jar was outrageous. But when I asked, they gave me a Senior Citizen discount so it wasn't so outrageous after all. Now it sits on that shabby end table next to the swayback couch. I don't know what I'll fill it with. Probably store bought cookies.

Helaman 13:4 The Man Upon the Wall

  

And it came to pass that they would not suffer that he should enter into the city; therefore he went and got upon the wall thereof, and stretched forth his hand and cried with a loud voice, and prophesied unto the people whatsoever things the Lord put into his heart.

Helaman 13:4 

Our hectic days and giddy nights hold us in careless thrall,

and so we miss the message of the man upon the wall.

There he stands both day and night, delivering the scoop,

while down below we listen not, but run a fruitless loop.

And when we have to stop because the traffic's at a crawl,

we do not like the things he says way up there on the wall.

He tells us truths so hard and sharp we shudder and refuse

to think the sins that we amass demand such bitter dues.

But when we shout for him to stop and cease his wretched squall,

 we cannot stop his thunderbolts from high upon the wall.

Whether we believe or not, there's something now amiss

with our petty plans as we must gaze down the abyss. 

At last he goes and leaves behind the taste of bitter gall;

yet history will vindicate the man upon the wall . . . 

Helaman 12:3

  And thus we see that except the Lord doth chasten his people with many afflictions, yea, except he doth visit them with death and with terror, and with famine and with all manner of pestilence, they will not remember him.

Helaman 12:3

Chasten me with honey, Lord, to make me bow my head.

Afflict me with abundance of my needful daily bread.

Reproach my money grubbing ways with manageable wealth,

and humble me with eyesight clear and lots of chronic health.

I hardly think a pestilence will help me love Thee more;

or an earthquake move me all Thy ways to much adore. 

I hope I'm not as dense as were those Nephite folk of old,

who needed quite a lot of grief before they would remold.

Killing me with kindness. if I may just recommend,

is how to keep me as Thy servant and devoted friend.

 

Assistant Supervisor at Fingerhut Telemarketing.

My wife became ill carrying our 6th child, and so I left the circus in mid-season to come home to care for her.

But I still needed a job to keep us going. We had just bought a house on Como Avenue, across from Van Cleve Park. There was a big cottonwood in the back yard and squirrels rioted in the attic. That house had real character and I didn't want to lose it.

Happily, just a few blocks away on Hennepin, the Fingerhut Catalogue company had established a telemarketing office. They were desperately trying to find enough warm bodies to fill 120 seats.

So I became a telemarketer. Don't expect me to apologize or start agonizing about the job. It paid well when I went above my weekly sales goals, and I got health insurance -- which was a godsend because that was the year all the kids came down with ear infections and bronchitis.

I enjoyed walking to work each day, past old brick homes with their mansard roofs and weedy gardens full of flaming pumpkins and ruined birdbaths. A lot of those homes were still in the hands of retired blue collar workers from the Pillsbury Mills on the river and machinists from the Ford plant over in St Paul. Their houses were worth a fortune but they hadn't the means to get them fixed up properly, so they sat in their gentle decay like something out of a Southern Gothic novel.

And I prospered at work, becoming an assistant supervisor after only six weeks on the job.

 My boss was Jeff -- a man with no neck and the disposition of an alligator.

My job now was to track the sales of each telemarketer. If they fell below certain well-defined weekly sales goals they were given one warning. Only one. If it happened again it was my job to let them go. That particular part of the job added immeasurably to my vocabulary, after hearing so many colorful descriptions of myself and of Fingerhut from those I gave the old heave-ho to.

That was the year that Fingerhut teamed up with The Swiss Colony to start selling their salami and cheese gift packages over the phone for the Holidays.

If you live in the Upper Midwest you have gotten at least one gift package from The Swiss Colony. They are as ubiquitous as casseroles. Those little pots of mustard; the petit fours; the useless tin cheese knife and plywood cheese board -- it is the stuff that Christmas is made of for the mundane masses from Sioux Falls to Sioux Ste Marie.

And Fingerhut had two million Swiss Colony boxes to sell by phone between October 31 and December 19.

And those gift boxes did sell, like . . . well, like greasy salami and waxy cheddar always sell in a heavily undiscerning Scandinavian and German part of the country. Fantastic.

Our top telemarketer was Shirley. She had been with the company for ages. Her sales statistics were fabulous. Because she cut the sales pitch right to the bone. It never varied:
"Hello this is Shirley I'm from Fingerhut how are you today? We're offering Swiss Colony gift boxes with cheese meat and jelly for only 19-95-plus shipping and handling. How many would you like?"
 Ninety percent of the people she contacted said no. But boy oh boy, that ten percent that said yes made her bonus money up the wazoo.

And she needed the funds. She was a single mother who supported not only her own children but her elderly mother and a host of useless brothers that, she told me once, had put Hamm's Brewery on the map.

Two weeks before Christmas Jeff called me into his sterile white office, which reminded me of an operating room for extra-terrestial probing, to tell me that Shirley was making too much money off of the company and needed to be encouraged to leave.

"She's paid nearly as much as you are" he told me, as if that should cause me to collapse in a dead faint.

I was given my marching orders: She had a performance review coming up that week, and I was to make it a hatchet job; to find fault with everything about her work, her appearance, and her attitude. And to make sure she did not merit another raise!

I did as I was told. I told her she spent too much time in the bathroom; her hair looked unprofessional; her voice was too loud; she was not customer-focused. So it had been decided not to give her a raise this quarter.

She wept and she raged at me. But she stuck it out until New Years, and then walked out the door for the last time with one of the fattest sales bonus checks in the history of Fingerhut . . .  

After bambina # 6 was born that spring, with both mother and child as healthy as a pair of horses, I felt the old restless urge to be out under canvas again, taking pratfalls and selling coloring books. Plus having to do the dirty to Shirley had left a bad taste in my mouth. If that was what management was all about I'd rather risk a blow down from a tornado in Kearney, Nebraska.

So when Clyde Beatty-Cole Brothers Circus called from Florida with an offer, I packed my trunk, kissed the wife and kids goodbye, and got on the Greyhound Bus . . .

Instructions for my funeral

I have no plans on leaving this life any time soon, but Man proposes and God disposes. So I wish to make my wishes known concerning my funeral arrangements.

First, I wish to be cremated. When convenient, I would like one of my children or grand children to scatter my ashes over any fresh river, lake, or stream in Minnesota.

I will probably pass away intestate; that means without a legal will. I see no need to have one, since I own absolutely nothing of value at this time. If that ever changes, I will have a legal will drawn up.

I have made my good friend Nathan Draper my literary executor. He will be in charge of all my writings. He has a document signed by me and witnessed by my daughter Sarah Read to that effect.

I wish my funeral services to be conducted by my Bishop at the time of my demise, and held in the ward chapel.

I prefer that it be a very short service.

I would like the opening hymn to be Nearer My God to Thee.

I would like my children, their spouses, and my grand children to sing, sometime during the service, I Believe In Christ.

I request the closing hymn be Onward Christian Soldiers -- which has always been my favorite hymn.

Please assign speakers to my service who have a firm and coherent testimony of Jesus Christ as the Savior. I wish all talks to center on Jesus Christ and the promise of the resurrection, and not on my life and character. The talks should refer to John 11:25 -- "Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live"

After the service I would be pleased if those attending could retire to the cultural hall or some other convenient community room for a luncheon/dinner, where photographs and other memorabilia of my life can be displayed, and where those attending can reminisce about my life and character. 

My final request is that there be lefse and pickled herring served as part of the luncheon/dinner. 

Helaman 11:6 Famine

  "And this work of destruction did also continue in the seventy and fifth year. For the earth was smitten that it was dry, and did not yield forth grain in the season of grain; and the whole earth was smitten, even among the Lamanites as well as among the Nephites, so that they were smitten that they did perish by thousands in the more wicked parts of the land."

Helaman 11:6

The tendrils of hunger supplied motivation

for dear repentance of that Nephite nation.

But not before thousands in agony died,

all for their wicked and ignorant pride.

Tis better to hunger for righteousness, friend;

and revel in mercy and ev'ry godsend.

For sin lieth at the front doorway of each 

even today, despite all that we preach.

And in a dream we may eat, we may drink;

then waken to find how our bellies do shrink.

My appetite, Lord, please increase to do right,

so that I may feast on thy goodness and light! 

Whenever I see someone blessed

"Why do we feel damaged when someone else is blessed?"  Jeffrey R. Holland.


Whenever I see someone blessed

I start to get very distressed.

Good fortune should be

just mine thoroughly;

all others must choose second-best. 

Zaqistan

BOX ELDER COUNTY — A 2-acre piece of land in Box Elder County, that the owner calls a sovereign nation, has generated so much attention that people are now signing up to visit.

Zaq Landsberg, from New York, claims the land in the remote northwest desert of Box Elder County — called Zaqistan — is his sovereign nation.

from KSL.com 

Come visit friendly Zaqistan, where all the cacti smile,
while zithers ply the amber air with music all the while.
The sunsets are so glorious they make the buzzards weep,
and sunrise comes so suddenly that people do not sleep.
Drink the local wine, which is fermented from fry sauce;
try our pickled gravel -- you will surely say it's 'boss'.
 Refugees are welcome to stop over on their way
to someplace else -- we give 'em tents and lots of Frito Lay.
No politicians ever bother our democracy;
our elected leaders are a boulder and a tree.
The skiing is delightful, if you don't mind avalanches;
the pine cones hit you on the head while falling from their branches.
Our houses are of sagebrush, and our roads are but a fable.
You can order pizza, but you cannot get good Cable.
A passport is not needed to behold our noble land;
just bring your camera and some cash (I'd say 'round twenty grand).

Religious Freedom.

 "I am convinced that a worldwide tide is currently running against both religious freedom and its parallel freedoms of speech and assembly."   Dallin H. Oaks. 

Defending the freedom to love
He who will bless from above
is duty most holy
for high and for lowly -- 
by soft words (and then boxing glove).

The Provo Senior Center: A Vignette

THE PROVO SENIOR CENTER: A VIGNETTE

So today the Senior Center lunch is roast beef with lots of gravy, mashed potatoes, green beans, and a big fluffy dinner roll. This is Birthday Friday, which means everyone with a birthday this month gets a nice card from the kitchen staff and a piece of sheet cake with gobs of frosting and ice cream on the side.

My birthday is this month. My mouth starts to water as I walk the six blocks from my apartment up to the Senior Center, with the mild sun barely warming my liver spots. I've got some packets of horseradish sauce I snitched from a delicatessen months ago.

Because of my income (or lack thereof) I fall below the luncheon charge threshold; my meals are free. But seeing it's such a beautiful day and I've got such a good hot meal ahead of me, I write a check to drop in the Donation box.

And because, in the famous words of James Cagney, that's the kind of hairpin I am, I have a pocketful of pencil balloons. After the blessing is said, instead of rushing up for my tray, I go around to the ladies at each table and make them poodles.

Ain't I great guy?

Then I get in line with my tray.

But I'm in the Leftovers line. Promptly at 12:20, the cooks hand out any leftovers to whoever comes up with a container. First come, first serve. It's now 12:25, and the meat and mashed potatoes are already gone, along with the big fluffy dinner rolls. There's nothing left but congealed gravy and canned green beans. .

I explain to the cooks I never got first helpings. They shake their heads in dismay, but do nothing except point at the big Howard Miller clock above the stainless steel counter.

I look at the crowd of seniors with their Tupperware containers crammed with seconds of roast beef and mashed potatoes, all of it drowning in gravy. They mutely shuffle away. Not a one offers me some of their leftovers, although I'm sure they all heard me.

I hate seniors.

I take the bus down to Carl's Jr for their special, a double cheeseburger combo for $4.99.

Reminiscences of a Rambler

It was drummed into me at an early age that I had three choices of transportation:

I could ride my bike.

I could take the bus.

I could walk.

My parents bought my my first Schwinn when I was seven; thereafter they considered me on my own, as far as covering any distances were concerned. The bus was only a quarter, when I needed it.

Being a middle class family we did have a car, but it was reserved for my dad. Children were not welcome in it; and even his own wife was more an imposition than an honored guest inside it.

So I grew up walking. Grade school was a block away. High school was eight blocks away; but in those medieval times an eight block walk was not considered any kind of a hardship. I walked it through cloudbursts and blizzards and the numbing arctic temperatures that a Minnesota winter can concoct. My long johns were snug and rubbed like a cheese grater.

And when I grew old enough to get a driver's license, I ignored the opportunity. Never took Driver's Ed. Never wanted to own a car. For by then I was not only inured to walking, but actually enjoyed my rambles. Besides, getting a license meant getting a car, and getting a car meant earning money, and I was dead set against such a demeaning expedient. I had better things to do, like watch John Gallos introduce Laurel & Hardy movies on WCCO TV.

When I joined Ringling Brothers Circus right out of high school they provided me a room on the train and a bus that took performers back and forth between the train and the arena. So I still didn't need a car. I banked my thin income as a clown, saving for a rainy day and a new pair of sneakers -- as I kept wearing mine out at regular intervals.

As the years rolled by I found one position after another that did not require a car. I depended on no machine to move me about -- just shank's mare. It gave me a wonderful feeling of independence, as well as keeping the weight off.

One of my favorite walks was to and from Brown Institute of Broadcasting on Lake Street in Minneapolis. I was studying to receive a broadcast certificate, and lived some six miles from the school. So I walked along East River Road, from University Avenue to Broadway, and then cut through some neighborhood streets to arrive at the school bright and sweaty each morning.  The dappled greens in summer, with the playful aroma of sewage and disintegrating carp, made the walk more therapy than exercise. And during the stern winter months, when plows threw up banks of snow nearly as tall as I was along the city streets, I savored the challenge to my progress as a mountain climber does the glacier that bares his way.

But then I got married. And learned to drive. And bought a series of cars to tote the wifey and the kiddies around in.

I pass over those frenetic years, gratefully. Suffice it to say I drove carefully and steadily, and never received a single ticket or was involved in a traffic accident in over 30 years.

Retiring at last to my one-bedroom apartment in Provo, Utah, to be close to a flock of developing grand kids, I once again eschewed owning any motor vehicle and reverted to my old tramping habits. I ambled up and down the Provo River Trail during the torrid heat of a desert summer as well as during the mild winter months, nothing like Minnesota, when the clouds and mist screen the mountains like a curtain of dirty cotton. It is pleasant to run across a tarnished plaque by the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, attached to a ruined millstone, or discover an abandoned set of concrete steps that lead nowhere in particular. There are horse chestnuts to collect in the fall, as they drop from the trees. I don't know what they're good for, but I collect 'em anyways.

But now the gods of perambulation decide to toy with me. I have osteoarthritis in both my knees, and my walks have perforce become truncated. A few blocks is all I can manage. Still, that is enough to get to the supermarket, the Rec Center, and the Provo Library. So though my physical boundaries may have shrunk, I don't feel as if my world is circumscribed at all.  

Besides, I always wanted an excuse to carry a cane like Charlie Chaplin . . .

Going to the movies as a kid

My mother and father differed in many, usually rancorous, ways.
None more so than their approach to taking the family on an outing.
The major divide was that my father never wanted to take his kids anywhere. Period. He slaved all day at Aarone's Bar & Grill, and held a second job at the Minneapolis Athletic Club as a towel jockey -- and so he felt entitled, in his free time at home, to settle into a comfortable chair. light up a Salem, and watch Bonanza; not drag a bunch of yowling brats around to the movies or the circus.
It took a titanic effort on the part of my mother, or the deepest bathos on the part of us kids, to move him.

But . . .
When he did move and did take us to the movies, it was as if Diamond Jim Brady had swaggered into town. He gave us enough money to buy the biggest Coke and the most capacious tub of popcorn, along with oodles of Raisinets, Jordan Almonds, Nonpareils, and Mason Crows licorice. After the show, if there were pinball machines in the lobby, as there were at the old Apache Chief in Columbia Heights, he allowed us to squander his coins on them until steam came out of my mother's ears and she stomped off to the car to await our descent into pauperism.  

My mother, on the other hand, was extremely conscientious about taking us places -- like the dentist or to Mass on Sunday. But I have to admit that she also took us to a fair number of movies and to the Zurah Shrine Circus every year.
But the thought of paying through the nose for any sort of concessions was anathema to her.
When she took us to the movies she brought along a bag of bridge mix in her purse, and if we wanted something to drink we could darn well go out into the lobby and lap up all the free water from the fountain that we wanted. This was not really fair, I now think, because the water fountain at the old Apache Chief was purposely kept in disrepair; it dispensed nothing but dust. I discovered early on to be sparing on the bridge mix, because after several mouthfuls it glues your tongue to the roof of your mouth if you have nothing liquid to go with it.
But it was our annual trip to the Shrine Circus that really showed her miserly mettle.
She would make her own popcorn the night before, stuffing it into brown paper bags from the Red Owl and fill up the big clunky red and white thermos with anemic powdered lemonade. Then tuck those minute paper Dixie cups, the size of a thimble, into her purse for the next day's outing. We always went with several of the neighborhood families and sat together to watch Tarzan Zerbini's lion act and juggling clown Carl Marx.
While the other families caroused with hot dogs and cotton candy, bought balloons and coloring books, my mother would apportion out the cold stale popcorn and pour out a few drab drips of lemonade for us. A circus programme book was out of the question -- we were not related to the Aga Khan.
Inevitably an usher would come up to her, reminding her that outside food was not allowed.
This produced such a cold glare from my mother that the usher would stumble backwards as if poleaxed, then turn and flee back down the concrete steps.

When my own kids came along I always made myself available to take them to shows and whatnot. But, like my mother, I found it very hard to pay through the nose for concessions. So we compromised. I brought an apple for each kid; after they ate it, if they wanted some junk to snack on from the candy stand, they could have it.
But now that my kids are all grown up, I rarely go out to see any kind of a show. I prefer to snuggle up with a good book or see what's happening on Netflix. But when I do go to a show I revert completely back to type; I buy a bag of chips and a can of Shasta to smuggle into the theater. No way am I going to pay those predatory concession prices while watching the next Star Wars or Jurassic Park.  

Thank you

Thanks to:
John Smith
Randall Digby
Tom Groome
Aditya Singhal
Dan Knudson
Dennis Carver
Steve Miller
Jay DeVivo
and
James Moseman
for their support of my newspaper poetry this morning in the Wall Street Journal. 

Living in a Shipping Container

The market for housing is rough;
to make it you gotta be tough.
A shipping container
would be a no-brainer;
for cozy, just put up a ruff.

Washington Post Reporter to Poet: "Get Lost"

((Ms. Margaret Sullivan, of the Washington Post newspaper))

Well, you can't please everyone.  This email just came in from Margaret Sullivan at the Washington Post:

Sullivan, Margaret via washpost.onmicrosoft.com	7:02 AM (7 minutes ago)
to me

 

Dear Tim,

 

Thank you. I do get a great deal of email so although I appreciate your talent, would ask to come off your list. 

All best wishes. 

MS

 

 

This blog is sponsored by The Colombia Journalism Review. 'Encouraging Excellence in Journalism'.

Why seest thou this man

 " Why seest thou this man, and hearest him revile against this people and against our law?"

Helaman 8:2

When we see and hear the prophet of the living Lord,

it might be his words are not too gentle, but a sword.

If all we want is honey drizzled on our impure ears,

we might end our lives in naught but ashes and salt tears.

The kindly words soft-spoken by our prophet here today

still contain stern warning that we'd better mend our way.

Because if we don't harken to his gentle spirit now,

like Nephites our bruised heads in sorrow we may someday bow. 

You make your own problems

My dad was Norwegian, and so, by definition, morbid and moody.

Unlike the go-getting dads in our Southeast Minneapolis neighborhood, my dad would never dream of telling me "You make your own luck". He believed instead, and rather strongly, "You make your own problems." So I grew up with a timid and diffident mindset when it came to luck.

I was always the class clown in grade school and high school. And so when Ringling Brothers announced the opening of the Clown College in Life Magazine, I surreptitiously cut out the article and mailed away for an application. I told myself I wouldn't be lucky enough to ever hear back from them. And I was almost right.

A few months later, after graduating from high school with mediocre grades, I heard back from Bill Ballantine, the Dean of the College. He invited me to attend that fall.

But I didn't find out about the real luck behind this break for me until years afterwards, when Bill's secretary, Linda, told me that when my application had come in Ballantine had glanced at it and then thrown it in a wire wastebasket, where it languished for two days (the janitor was rather dilatory). Then Irvin Feld, the owner of Ringling Brothers, happened to pass by the secretary's desk, saw the mashed up application, and demanded "What's this?" She pulled it out, smoothed it down, and handed it to him. He read my application, she said, with deep interest, and then commanded "Invite him down; he sounds like just the kind of nut we can use!"

My winning streak continued at the Clown College in Venice, Florida, when it came time to audition for Mr. Feld and a select audience he invited to the barn-like Winter Quarters building to view each clown doing a solo act.
My solo act, juggling straw hats, lasted all of forty seconds, when one of my inflammable hats rolled over to the hot footlights and caught on fire. I hastily stamped it out, and then, completely flummoxed, took my bow and exited.
The luck came when I accompanied another clown for his solo act. He juggled fire torches, and I came out with him dressed as a comic fireman, holding an old-fashioned brass fire extinguisher canister. I was not supposed to do anything, just stand there; but I decided to put down the canister and let it tip over. Next thing I knew there was foam fizzing out of the hose all over the place. When I tried to pick up the hose I squirted myself right in the eyes, becoming temporarily blind. And then I turned blindly around with the hose in my hand, spraying the audience, including Mr. Feld in the front row.
For that I got a tongue lashing from Bill Ballantine, but a few hours later I also got a contract to appear as a First Of May on the Blue Unit of Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Combined Shows. The Greatest Show on Earth. As Mr. Feld handed me his gold Waterman to sign the contract, he chuckled: "You're a natural lunatic, Mr. Torkildson -- I like that!"
My streak of clown luck continued for the next 6 years, from the circus in the US to gigs inMexico and Thailand and then back to the circus, where I got into a fight with Michu, the World's Smallest Man. I was blacklisted from the circus after that, and my clown career went to hell in a handbasket.

Helaman 7:8

  "Yea, if my days could have been in those days, then would my soul have had joy in the righteousness of my brethren."

Helaman 7:8

My days are now, my place is here;

and so I must attend with cheer

to all my duties this day brings

no matter how my yearning swings.

For I do dream of better times,

of sweeter days and softer climes;

Good places I was meant to be,

but for my God's economy.

But since no time machine exists

and I've no time for vain sophists,

I'll focus on what present ways

I can serve in these dark days. 

Helaman 6:3

"And they did fellowship one with another, and did rejoice one with another, and did have great joy."
Helaman 6:3

When the clouds are rolling up and thunder echoes deep,
there is comfort in the joy of fellowship's wide sweep.
 For though the world may hasten to its bitter tawdry end,
the Saints will gather and rejoice that Jesus is their Friend.
Despite our diff'rent languages and cultures, we are sure
that happiness is part of life for those both clean and pure.
And if we slip and stumble it is good to know that others
will not judge but strive to be our sisters and our brothers. 
 Won't you join our lively ranks, and learn the mystery
of how those favored by the Lord obtain such pristine glee? 

Altercasting

To make people act as you wish

use lather from any soap dish.

Just tell them how warm

they seem to perform;

they'll stop being such a cold fish. 

Pizza

Inventing the pizza's heroic;

chewing it, you can't be stoic.

The crust and the sauce,

with toppings -- it's boss!

It's Homeric, or even Troic! 

Dissenters

  But it came to pass in the fifty and sixth year of the reign of the judges, there were dissenters who went up from the Nephites unto the Lamanites; and they succeeded with those others in stirring them up to anger against the Nephites; and they were all that year preparing for war.

Helaman 4:4

Honest disagreement is no bar to amity;

but backbiting dissension leads to dire calamity.

No two people think alike but that's no cause to fight.

Only lust for power turns debate to dynamite. 

So if your shoulder holds a chip, don't nail it down -- instead

pry it loose and throw it into any old woodshed.

Stow your tongue and bow your head, then turn the other cheek;

otherwise a traitor you'll become and havoc wreak.

And when the battle's over, win or lose, you won't receive

any of the plaudits that you thought you would achieve. 

The readers who speak their own mind

The readers who speak their own mind

are not often very inclined

to dally with prudence;

instead they like rudence.

Their ignorance is nonaligned. 

The Paper Drive: Another Stumble Down Memory Lane

The crisp colors and temperatures of fall remind me of the paper drives we held at Tuttle Grade School in Southeast Minneapolis when I was a moppet.

Everyone took the newspaper in those wasteful and extravagant days. Delivered to your doorstep before the dew was gone in the morning, and then again as the meatloaf came out of the oven at eventide. Sitting on the porch reading the newspaper was as common and iconic as raking leaves in the fall or cutting the grass with a push reel mower in the summer.

And those were days when the long shadow of the Great Depression still lingered in the minds, if not the wallets, of my parents. You cleaned your plate. You turned off the lights when nobody was in a room. You saved up string and rubber bands and newspapers; because there was no telling when you might need to tie up a parcel for mailing or spread out some newspapers prior to filleting a dozen crappie -- and nobody in their right mind made a trip to the store just to buy string or an extra newspaper.

And so every well-regulated household had its pile of newspapers in the basement or the garage. And there it sat, gathering dust and sheltering silverfish, until the annual paper drive.

Memory no longer informs me what the money raised was used for -- perhaps a new mimeograph machine or school field trip to the Bell Museum.

What I do recall distinctly is my sudden decision to pretend I had an allergy to the sisal twine used to bind up the stacks of newspapers. The twine had a peculiar tangy odor and was stiff and prickly. You could almost get a splinter from it.

Out of the blue I told my second grade teacher, Mrs. Redd, that I was allergic to twine. In proof I began sneezing the minute a ball of twine was brought near me. They were unconvincing sneezes; weak and insincere. But Mrs. Redd swallowed my fib -- hook, line, and sinker. And thereafter, right through sixth grade, I was excused from having to tie up the stacks of lose newspapers.

I never had to worry much about bringing in a goodly amount of newsprint. My mother religiously kept every edition, neatly bundled and tied with string (not twine), and had me lug each stack out to the garage for safekeeping. Plus our next door neighbor was old Mrs. Henderson, a widow whose basement was a fire trap from the extent of her newspaper collection. Brown and flaking, she had copies dating back to World War Two (the newspapers were brown and flaking, that is; not Mrs. Henderson). Each year she graciously allowed me to scoop up a dozen or so bundles for the paper drive.

So I had it made in the shade. I loaded the bundles on my wagon on a glorious autumn day and trundled them the one block to Tuttle, where they joined a huge pile on the front lawn that soon took on the dimensions of a small turreted castle nearly two stories high. I dumped my stack and then joined the other kids in climbing to the top of the pile to yodel like Tarzan while the turrets swayed like a pendulum. How and why no one was ever buried alive in a newspaper avalanche is still a mystery to me. Maybe guardian angels aren't such a myth after all . . .


Teachers and students alike dreaded one thing during the paper drive -- a long soaking rain. Such an occurrence would turn the newspapers to mush, making them useless to sell. The pile grew so large that no single sheet of canvas could cover it all. Half-hearted measures were made to cover it up piecemeal with old blankets and tents at night. But everyone kept a weather eye peeled until the big truck came from the paper mill to pick it all up.

In fifth grade an evil idea came to me and my comrades during the paper drive. Since the paper was sold by weight, what if we were to surreptitiously slip a few bricks and stones into our paper bundles, thus fraudulently increasing the take?

Our crime was discovered by Mr. Berg, the sixth grade teacher. Under his stern gaze we sullenly removed the rip rap from our bundles. He then bade us begone, and never sully the good name of Tuttle Grade School again with such low maneuvers.

I would have felt pretty bad about it, except that evening I happened to take a stroll over to the schoolyard, since I lived just a block away, and saw Mr. Berg and a few other teachers, under cover of darkness, dousing some of the newspaper bundles with buckets of water -- and they were NOT attempting to put out any fire . . .

The prodigal

A prodigal returned; was met

by those who never could forget.

They cherished naught but memory,

and made it rub like emery.

The prodigal must fight the past;

his 'friends' would like it long to last.

For prodigals the future beams,

and recollection turns to dreams.

But those with no cause to repent

oft turn the welcome to torment.

Though prodigals have made mistakes,

I think the smug make more heartaches . . . 

Harold Bloom said . . .

"We read . . . in quest of a mind more original than our own."
Harold Bloom 


The mind of man cannot contain
the least scintilla to make us vain.
Upon an anthill we recline,
while universes round us shine.
The pinnacle of wisdom here
is really nothing but small beer.
Original, and so unflawed,
is the mind of Christ and God.

Helaman 3:3

  And it came to pass in the forty and sixth, yea, there was much contention and many dissensions; in the which there were an exceedingly great many who departed out of the land of Zarahemla, and went forth unto the land northward to inherit the land.

Helaman 3:3

Contention and dissension make a restless people flee

to other lands in hopes of finding more serenity.

But whether to the mountains or the bronze and pebbled shore,

their travels cannot take them to a place of sweet rapport.

That only can occur on journeys of the heart and soul;

where God, invited in, can make a refugee feel whole. 

  

Hikingware Emergency Preparedness Blog #1

FINDING POWER DURING AN EMERGENCY

An EMP blast from the right location has the ability to do serious damage to the power grid.  The American government created a report that is hundreds of pages long to address this potential disaster. Not only is an EMP a serious concern for our nation, the majority of us are woefully unprepared to find power after such an event.

How about you? Hikingware.com offers this list of alternative power sources if you happen to get in the way of an electromagnetic pulse that shuts down the power grid:

Car Batteries – The robotic cars of this age will surely have most of their useful parts scrambled but the power you can yield from a car battery is substantial. In fact with a simple converter you are able to power homes with your car!

1. Household Batteries – If you are already prepping you should have this power source en mass. If not seek them out. I am sure Americans have tons of batteries in use they could pull power from. Dump toy boxes, search pantries, video game controllers and other appliances that hidden and rarely used.
2. Household Batteries – If you are already prepared you should have this power source en mass. If not, seek them out.  Americans have tons of batteries in use that they could pull power from. Dump toy boxes, search pantries, video game controllers and other appliances that hidden and rarely used.
3. Alarm Systems – Criminals evolve just like the rest of us. Since they realized cutting the lines that run to your alarm system is a good way to negate its efficacy, alarm companies have moved to wireless. That means your system is powered by some alternative source of power. Your cameras as well, if wireless, are pulling power from an independent source.
4. Cable Boxes – The cable companies install these boxes on the side of our homes and even sometimes inside the house. These are wired to the power but are also backed up with a some type of battery.
5. Marine Batteries – In a situation like this it’s very unlikely that you will be trolling around the local bass waters in your jon boat, especially if you have no way to tow it. Utilize the power of your marine batteries as an emergency source for your home.
6. Laptops – Most of these shutdown with 10 or so % of power left to assure you don’t find it completely dead. Either way, with the right tools you can easily harvest power from your laptops. However, be aware that you can receive a powerful shock from your laptop if you fiddle around the inside without knowing what you're doing. This is one power source you'd better study up on before trying it out! 
7. Portable Electronic Power Sources – These wonderful power bars or power boxes can be fueled by anything with a USB port and left on standby for the day the lights go off.

Love More, Worry Less

Love is so important that Jesus called it “the first and great commandment” and said that every other particle of the law and words of the prophets hang upon it.

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf

The Savior and the Father have a constant love for me;

but I in turn can only love them faint and fitfully.

For I am filled with gravel and the lusts of flesh, alas;

my fickle passion for my God still withers like the grass.

Oh help my love a river be, as strong as rooted Nile!

Give to me a solidness that nothing can beguile!

These clouds and vapors that I spout cannot contain the love

I yearn to have for Thee and all Thy blessings up above.