A mailman who worked in Decatur

A woman videotaped a US Postal Service worker earlier this week dumping bin after bin of mail in the woods behind her subdivision in Decatur, Georgia.

from CNN

A mailman who worked in Decatur

was rather a lousy curator.

He thought of his letters

as so many fetters,

and dumped them into a green crater. 

Minnesota Snow Child

I am still a Minnesota snow child. The summer fishing and endless bike rides were fine as far as they went. But to me an overnight snowfall was an incomparable gift that turned my existence into a bracing delight.

If you were dreamy enough, as I was back in those pre-Doppler Radar days, you could sense the arrival of the first big overnight snowfall. The sky is battleship gray and the bare elm branches clatter in the wind, which carries the scent of an unflavored sno-cone. On the evening news good old Bud Kraehling is hedging his bets -- not saying it will snow and not saying it won't. But the glint in his eye lets me know he is wishing for it as much as I am.

I can usually see the Weatherball perched atop the Northwestern National Bank building in downtown Minneapolis from my bedroom window. But this night the frost is too thick on the glass pane -- which I take to be another good sign of coming snowfall. Our curmudgeonly oil-burning furnace in the basement clanks like boxcars being connected as it strives to keep our thinly insulated house warm. We have storm windows, but otherwise the only insulation is ancient newspapers, crisped brown, laid along the attic rafters helter-skelter.  

Falling asleep as a kid on a winter night is like being administered a powerful anesthetic in the hospital right before surgery; one second I'm wide awake and full of thoughts, and then it's eight hours later with seemingly no measurable interval between the two points of time. For a delicious moment I look around the room, which is bathed in a bright milky light -- the shine of sunlight reflecting off snow.

A bowl of Malt-o-Meal awaits me in the kitchen, where I sit staring out the windows at the frigid manna. Where once there was nothing but a bitter brown frozen lawn there now sits a quilt of snow. I can't wait to get out into it. My mother scolds unheeded as I play with my cereal, too excited to eat.

Then comes the prodigious ceremony of getting dressed to go out. This takes time and patience. No slick polyester materials back then to shield me from the chill. First come the zippered black rubber galoshes over the shoes. The zipper, of course, is reluctant to cooperate and needs to be rubbed and lubricated with a bar of Fels-Naptha laundry soap. Then a long woolen scarf is wrapped round and round my scrawny neck until it looks and feels like a yoke. My padded wool coat weighs a good ten pounds dry -- once it is wet with melted snow it will double in weight. A wool cap is forced down over my head like a bottle cap, and then the thick woolen mittens are attached to my hands. I've already broken into a sweat as I step out the back kitchen door into the purity of untrodden and untroubled snow.

If it's a school day I trudge through the snow one block to Tuttle Grade School -- imagining all the while I am fighting through a trackless Siberian waste. Is that a polar bear up ahead ready to pounce? No, just old Mrs. Henderson's wheelbarrow carelessly left out in the yard overnight. A file of penguins in the distance resolves itself into other little drudges like myself, waddling along to school.

But, glory be, if it is NOT a school day, I head back to the garage to disinter the snow shovel -- in my case a cast iron coal shovel that weighs almost as much as me. I dig and thrust with this behemoth until I have cleared a path from the garage to the back door, then rest a moment to watch the lines of snow fall silently to the ground as the wind stirs the elm branches. Then I continue my labor into the front until the sidewalks are clear.

Now, I have pondered many years as to why I enjoyed this chore so much. As a general rule, I was loath to lift a finger around the house and had to be threatened and bribed immoderately to do anything. But to me shoveling was a pleasure. Perhaps it was the pristine silence all around me or the deep heavy clang of the shovel as it scrapped the cement. Something tactile it was, that gave me a keen sense of delight. My mother was equally puzzled as to why this one particular chore held me in such a thrall, but she was not going to rock the boat by asking me why I liked doing it. If it ain't broke . . .

Until, of course, I grew up and acquired a bad back. Then shoveling became hateful torture.

School day or not, the most pressing item on the agenda is bushwhacking my best friend Wayne with a snowball. He lives across the street from me, and it is understood by both of us that no warning is given prior to launch. Whoever scores a direct hit first wins. A year older than me, Wayne is wiser than I am in all boyhood things -- but the first strike triumph is always mine. Probably because he is a bit more of a gentleman than I am. When it comes to snowballs, I am an out-and-out cad. I know his habits and schedule well, and I lie in wait behind tree trunk or mailbox to ambush him. The rules then call for a general free-for-all, with targets including other unwary passersby and cars going down the street. Usually as the battle reaches a white hot pitch one of the cars we pelt brakes abruptly and the driver piles out to revenge himself on the little weasels who have scared the bejabbers out of him. That is our cue to melt away like the wily Inuit into the blinding whiteness.

A Minnesota snowfall is an abiding thing; it won't run out on you. So there is plenty of time for snowmen and snow forts and more snowball fights.

Naturally sledding is on the agenda, but it is a challenge in that the nearest park, Van Cleve, is as flat as a pool table. So we take our sleds over to Grandma's Hill -- a very slight hump in Southeast Minneapolis that answers for immediate needs. It's actually a street that crosses a railroad track. My grandmother Daisy lives on that street; hence the moniker 'Grandma's Hill'. The descent is not very spectacular, but sliding across the railroad tracks adds that touch of forbidden danger that a boy craves like candy.

My soggy woolens are freezing up, giving me a stiff Frankenstein's monster walk, so it must be time to head for home. One last snowball is exchanged for friendship's sake and then I'm in the back hall, ruddy-cheeked and on the verge of chilblains. Emerged from my soggy cocoon, I sit down to a big plate of Schweigert wieners -- my mother's traditional meal after the first big snowfall. She serves them with plain macaroni and canned corn on the side. It is food I still eat, at least in my mind, whenever the slings and arrows and bad backs of life become too acute.

Acting is a noble craft

Acting is a noble craft/if you do not get the shaft/On the telly or the stage/tis hard to make a living wage/Drive a cab or dishes wash/just to buy spaghetti squash/Those who want can persevere/and hope a break will soon appear/If it does and big you score/your former pals you'll soon ignore/For fame wipes out the memory/of those you left in poverty/But just remember that the muse /that lets you win can make you lose/So save your money and help a friend/for soon the roll of luck will end/Then you'll eat crow and cheap balogna/when you have to pawn your Tony. 

Many in Thailand want a princess to ascend to the throne, but her scandal-plagued brother is next in line

A throne is a perilous seat;
much hotter than tropical heat.
A princess may reign,
but what she might gain
is monarchy a la dutch treat.

My Naps. Parts 1 & 2

PART ONE

My parents disapproved of naps. For themselves, anyway. I never saw my mother lay down in the middle of the day until she was well past the age of eighty. Dad was always in a semi-slumberous state when at home anyways, from a combination of late night work at Aarone's Bar & Grill and a determined disinterest in any aspect of homemaking and home owning that might involve him. He could pose like an oriental statue of the Buddha, sitting in his chair in front of the TV for unending hours, round-bellied, inert yet sentient. A nap would have been more of an interruption than a rest for him.

 At some point, probably before I turned seven, my parents had given up on molding their children into responsible citizens, so if we wanted to snooze our lives away with catnaps and siestas it was all the same to them.

But I had caught their spirit of disapproval, and it was many long years before I could bring myself to enjoy forty winks while the sun was still out.

Of course in kindergarten we had a mandatory nap time. Mostly, I think, to give the harried teacher a chance to recover some sanity. Our little red mats were neatly lined up in rows on the floor, where we were required to lay down, cover ourselves with a thin cotton blanket, and remain still as mummies for an hour. This was an impossible task for me. The minute I was on the mat I began humming to myself and rolling back and forth as if in a storm-tossed boat. The teacher eyed me sternly, so I would modify my actions somewhat, but I never slept. My young blood percolated with energy, so trying to abruptly stop in the middle of an exciting foray into the sandbox or a struggle with a recalcitrant lump of clay was not only unreasonable but cruel.
This experience also prejudiced me against naps in later life; I associated them with restrictions, not rest.

Branded one of the laziest teenagers in the Western Hemisphere by my mother, I could loll in bed half the day if given the chance; but deliberately laying down again once I was rousted out of bed I considered to be totally uncool.

Then it was off to the circus for me! I joined Ringling Brothers Blue Unit as a clown in 1971, and a nap under those exhilarating circumstances was out of the question. My cohorts and I were way too busy busking for thousands each day, then struggling to find a laundromat to wash our clothes and someplace cheap to eat when the pie car fare grew unpalatable. Plus there were showgirls to pursue. Even regular sleep became elusive. Every veteran of the tanbark has said at one time or another: "I'll sleep when I'm dead." Morbid, but pretty accurate for that kind of career.

The exception to the rule was the old lion tamer turned clown Swede Johnson. To me he looked to be right around one thousand years old, with a face ravaged by more crevices than the Badlands of South Dakota. Between shows he crawled into the clown prop box containing a foam rubber dragon and several layers of thick canvas for a siesta. We knew better than to disturb his rest and risk his premature awakening. When disturbed he boiled out of the prop box like a swarm of hornets and began hurling curses and his wooden clogs at everyone in sight.

Next I volunteered as an LDS missionary in Thailand, where there was no sanctioned napping whatsoever. We knocked on doors and held street meetings the length and breadth of the Kingdom without respite, from 6 a.m. until 9 p.m. -- with a few hours spared for meals and the study of the Thai language. To say that in that tropical heat, after a heavy meal of fried fish, sticky rice, and rambutan, I never once fell into an exhausted sleep while studying that intricate language would be to stretch literary license beyond the breaking point.

  And so it went. I came back to the States after my mission, traveled to Mexico to study pantomime, met my beautiful bride in Williston, North Dakota, and together we raised eight magnificent children. With no naps. At least, not for me.
Whenever Amy was pregnant I took it upon myself to see that she was able to get a nap whenever I was at home for the day -- usually weekends and holidays. Mid afternoon I would gather up all the kiddies to take outside for two hours, no matter the weather. We went to the park or walked along lonely railroad tracks picking milkweed or pestered the firemen at the local station or just walked aimlessly around until we found a grocery that sold Popsicles.

Looking back, and tooting my own horn for once, I have to say that was probably the only noble thing I ever did during my marriage. When called before the Judgement Seat at the Last Day I will be able to face the Lord when he thunders: "Well, what do you have to say for yourself?" and reply: "Well, I may have messed up a lot -- but I gave my wife the chance to take a nap when she was pregnant every day that I was home."

I think that will earn me some brownie points.


PART TWO 


I well remember my first real nap as an adult. It was after I had turned sixty. The kids were grown and gone. The wife was gone and remarried. I was living in a basement apartment, and no longer owned a car. It was a raw March day and I had a job interview. Looking at the bus schedule, which was a crazy quilt of several different lines I'd have to take to get to the interview, I decided to walk. My stroll would take me along the Provo River Trail for most of the way, which would be pleasant indeed.
I allowed myself an hour and a half to get to my interview. I bundled up well and set off walking. It was farther than I thought. Much farther. As the time raced by I no longer enjoyed the gurgle of the river or the faint tentative notes of returning songbirds. I was in a mad rush to get to my interview in time. I barely made it, out of breath and with sweat pouring down my face. After the interview I staggered back home along the same river path, this time too exhausted to heed the wood notes wild. Back at last to my little hole, I peeled off my shoes, unwrapped my coat and scarf, and fell into a chair. I still had to go grocery shopping that day and had scheduled several hours to write up the history of the door knob. But one look at my comfy, disheveled bed, with the fluffy pillows scattered about it like clouds in the sky, and the die was cast. The rest of the world could go hang -- I was napping.


(FYI: I did not get the job.)

Since then I have learned to overcome my aversion to daytime napping, and now consider myself to be somewhat of an aficionado.

My nap strategy is simple. When I have to get up at 3 in the morning to use the bathroom (which is most nights) I know I will not be getting back to sleep again. So I brew myself a cup of Bengal Spice herbal tea, sit down to my laptop, and start writing. I write limericks, quatrains, memoirs, essays, apothegms, as well as committing many other literary offences. Then I take several pills the doctor insists will keep me from inflating like a blow fish. And then I carefully plan out breakfast. Will it be bacon and eggs, with buttered toast and a glass of prune juice? Or shall I indulge my ethnic bent with a fresh bagel and some lox, washed down with horchata? Perhaps several toaster waffles are called for, drowned in butter and molasses, with a side of Jimmy Dean's pork sausages and a mug of hot chocolate. Once this delightful chore is finished, I immediately go back to bed until about 10 a.m.
Then arise to prepare and demolish my breakfast. Or brunch, if you want to be persnickety about it.

On the rare days I manage to sleep until a decent hour, I do not schedule a nap, but simply wait for a delicious drowsiness to overtake me whenever it pleases in the afternoon, and then go lay down on top of my bed, covered with a thin cotton blanket (shades of kindergarten!) Once I'm up again I take another set of pills that my medico assures me will prevent goiters and keep my prostate in line. And then I read something edifying for several hours until dinner time -- right now I am perusing Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, as well as Thurber's My Life and Hard Times. Dinner is often nothing more than ramen noodles with some pickled vegetables and a hard boiled egg. I keep my culinary extravagances strictly to the mornings. I spend my evenings distributing alms to destitute Green Party candidates, or watching Netflix. I'm in bed by ten.

With so many of my kids scattered up and down Utah Valley, I often have to deal with dinner invitations and birthday parties for the grand kids. This sometimes puts a kink in my napping regime, but I've learned to be flexible. When I am invited over I immediately wrangle the most comfortable chair in the living room and remain there throughout the proceedings. I even eat there instead of at the table, claiming the prerogative of a decaying pantaloon to sup where he pleases.


After long years of practice with my own kids, I have learned to tune out the bedlam my grand children create at the drop of a fruit roll up. So I snuggle into my chair if the mood hits me, and drift off into a grandfatherly nap. My kids think this is rather cute. It adds a folksy touch to the gathering, what with dear old grandpa slumped over in his chair, a thin thread of drool issuing from his mouth.

 Unfortunately, little children seem to have a fascination with elderly eyeballs. At least my grand kids do. Whenever I begin to snore and burble like a stream in spate, one of them is bound to crawl into my lap and give me a gentle poke in the eye. Not out of malice, mind you, but simple curiosity as to what's under the lid. Maybe they think I keep Hershey kisses there. Once they are satisfied that it is merely a common, garden variety eyeball, they jump off my lap and go back to their video games. And I try to go back to my nap. Unless there's some leftover dessert . . .

Trump's call to monitor polls raises fears of intimidation

Democracy thrives on the thought
that voters can never be bought.
Bamboozled indeed,
but still there's no need
for thugs in the school parking lot. 

Inside Donald Trump’s very dangerous strategy to discredit the media

Killing the messenger, sire,

is full of foul consequence dire;

the truth must be told

by those who are bold,

and not by some toadies for hire.

Jay Perkins

When an Oelwein Police Department reserve officer “mooned” and pointed a gun at a Hillary Clinton yard sign, was it legally protected free expression or misconduct meriting disciplinary action?

from the Des Moines Register

Our cops have the right to protest

whenever they feel some unrest.

Why not shoot the moon

to show they're in tune

with others who feel so oppressed? 

Louisiana isn’t letting immigrants get married

So, as of this year, any foreign-born person wanting to get married in Louisiana must produce both an unexpired visa (even though a federal court has ruled that marriage licenses cannot be denied based on immigration status), as well as, somewhat inexplicably, a birth certificate.

from the Washington Post 

In Rayville the immigrant swain

a license to marry can't gain. 

And ain't it a shame

Erath is the same;

while living in sin is no strain. 

Why U.S. press freedom may not survive 2016

The reality is much cruder than we care to admit. The group Reporters Without Borders ranks the United States as a mediocre 41st out of 180 nations for press freedom, behind not just the usual suspects (Canada, the Scandinavian countries) but places like Ghana and Chile. That's not surprising in a country that honors its government whistleblowers by indicting them or throwing them into jail and wherereporters covering Black Lives Matter-style protests have found themselves detained for no good reason. And this was all before Peak Donald Trump.

from the Philadelphia Inquirer 

Dispensing with journos would be

a milestone in our history.

Who needs yapping dogs

when we've got fine blogs

that play with the truth constantly?