"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.
Sunday, September 18, 2016
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.
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).
Saturday, September 17, 2016
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).
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).
Friday, September 16, 2016
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.
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.
Thursday, September 15, 2016
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 . . .
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 . . .
Wednesday, September 14, 2016
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.
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.
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.
Tuesday, September 13, 2016
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.
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"
Well, you can't please everyone. This email just came in from Margaret Sullivan at the Washington Post:
|
7:02 AM (7 minutes ago)
 | | ||
| ||||
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'.
Friday, September 9, 2016
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.
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