An email to Nathan Draper. Monday, May 15. 2023.

 

yes, this email is composed only for you and sent only to you.

because i miss the days when i would spend a leisurely afternoon on my typewriter composing letters to friends.  many of them dead now, like tim holst (who baptized me) and kevin bickford, a.k.a. rufus t. goofus (who once threw me into the hippo's wading pool.)  so many others i have lost track of like peter willden and bart seliger and michael nebeker and elder day (my comp at the LTM in hawaii -- i can't even remember his first name now.  but when we were comps in thailand for a few weeks when i was touring doing grade school clown shoes he got really bored and kinda resentful that we weren't doing any regular missionary work so at the end of one of my shows he pied me with a shaving cream pie. it got a big laugh and he thought we should include it in all my shows but i told him no thanks.)

by the way, this looks to be a long string of drool, so i will break it up with lines of asterisks so you can stomach it easier. just read one section at a time. then take a break to go get some som tum or take a nap. then come back for the next section.  on the other hand, i only had five hours of sleep last night and i may nod off at any minute here. so there won't be anymore to read.  i'm just waiting for amy to finish the laundry here at her sister's house in idaho before we go into town to the dollar store to get a shower curtain and sardines.  if they don't have any sardines i'm going to make amy stop at the arctic circle burger for an order of french fries for my lunch.

*******************************************************************

Idaho is a state of mind -- that's why it needs a psychiatrist.

hmmm.  that needs work.  let's try another one:

Minnesota is the land of ten thousand lakes and ten million bait shops.

naw, not very good.  dump it.

Utah has the greatest snow on earth -- but the worst drivers on the freeways.

decent. i like it.

i should write a haiku about writing emails:

the cursor highlights

how impersonal we get

with our blinking words.

not too shabby. think I'll copy it to put on facebook and my twitter account.

amy wants me to change my shirt so she can wash it.  this is important to write down because why?  because i once again have someone in my life who cares about how i look (and smell.)   going without that kind of person for 26 years was depressing.

unlike writing a personal letter, writing a personal email means the content is liable to be shared with everyone and their dog at some time in the future. so i have to be careful what i say about the people around me, cuz there's a chance they may read it.  with a personal letter, once you sealed it and mailed it it was just between you and the person you sent it to.  unless they chose to share it with others.

i wish i had saved the thousands of letters i received over the years from friends and family.  i still have a sack full of postcards from my kids while i was out of their lives. but otherwise i threw away beautiful letters from old clown friends and missionary companions and old girlfriends and my old minneapolis pals who knew me when i first joined the church.  i'm going to be leaving very little of anything behind when i pass on.  nothing of material value except an insurance policy for amy.  and all the stuff i've written.  which i suspect won't matter an iota to any of my kids. but i've said that before.  who cares?  i hope to be so busy in the next life that i'll forget my obsession with fame in this world.

i wonder if famous people in this world are still famous in the next?  did lincoln meet with a standing ovation when he crossed over?  what happened with hitler?  or charlie chaplin?

all i know for sure is that when i get over there i'll see my little boy Irvin.

the wind is always blowing here in idaho.  it stunts the lilac bushes, which are no higher than your knee. the wind carries odors a long way.  i can smell the water treatment plant five miles away, and the cheese factory just outside of Rupert.

**************************************************************************

in May the roadkill

attracts fell things of the night --

unhealthy to meet.

we saw a lot of roadkill on the way to Buhl this morning for ice cream. their creamery is superb. we got killer chocolate and lemon curd. now that we're back at the house we'll probably take a nap and then drive over to Twin Falls to eat at a curry house that specializes in lamb dishes. but if you get there after 6 p.m. they're usually out of lamb and you have to settle for chicken or paneer.

**************************************************

Well, my fine feathered friend, you're in luck.  i seem to be coming down with something.  my throat is on fire and i can barely see straight.  hope it's just a throat infection and not that blankity-blank covid.  anywho, i shall end my email here for the nonce so i can go spray my throat with otc Phenol and gulp more aspirin.  i only ate a third of my curry, which is a sure sign with me that i'm ill.  i'll try to choke down some Buhl ice cream to keep my throat soothed and then sit in my La-z-Boy for the rest of the day and night and dream of winning the nobel prize in literature for my haiku.

toodles, tt.

Prose Poem: No Connection. (Dedicated to Jason DeRusha.)

 

I want to state for the record that I categorically deny any connection between myself and Mr. Jason DeRusha, the food critic and part-time bon vivant. 

There is no truth to the rumor that he and I opened a restaurant in Seattle during the late 90s that featured a fried green tomato souffle.

An affidavit is on file at the Hennepin County Courthouse affirming that we do not share any of the same DNA. A copy of this affidavit is held by the Mayo Clinic.

He is not now nor ever has been and never will be my consigliere.  We have never met. He and I are not classmates, contemporaries, or even inhabit the same plane of existence. We do not speak the same language.  I don't even listen to him on the radio.

After a careful and impartial investigation conducted by the Pinkerton Agency, it now appears that various parties, who shall remain nameless if not blameless, began to link our names together on social media during the fall of 2019.  Their motivation in making these baseless claims remains obscure.  But I believe it has something to do with the Hurricane Dorian coverup.  Or the rising price of chicken feet. 

Be that as it may, I contend that Mr. DeRusha and I have no basis for a meeting of any kind.  Either now or in the foreseeable future.  If our paths happen to cross by accident I will be wearing blinders.  

I hope this lays to rest, once and for all, any further speculation about our relationship.  He and I are like two nights passing on a ship. 

Haiku from Idaho

 

a curtain of rain

obscures the green mountainside --

Road Work next ten miles.

After the disappointing turnout for my makdi on Saturday I wanted to put the obsession for cooking big meals behind me.  Put it in perspective.  See if I couldn't quit doing it cold turkey.  When Amy went shopping Saturday morning and then called to say she would also be getting the tires rotated I took this as a sign we should take a road trip.  So we left Provo for Wendell, Idaho that afternoon to visit her sister's farm.

We arrived at 8:30 that evening, only to discover that Amy's sister had given away the rocker recliner we had brought up last year -- the only comfortable chair for me in the house and where I slept part of each night. Not only that, but the only available bedroom was upstairs, up nearly two flights of stairs.  My knees would not take me up and down those steps more than once a day.  I said nothing, but the stark look of disappointment on my face moved Amy's sister to have one of her football-playing sons pull an abandoned La-Z-Boy out of a storage shed and put it in the living room for me.  I am writing this from the comfort of that chair, happy and grateful to admit being pampered and catered to. I sleep very well in it.

I will cook nothing while we are here.  I'm asking Amy to fix me bacon and eggs for breakfast each morning.  For lunch I want to eat nothing but a can of sardines and a fresh tomato.  Dinner will be eaten out at Thai or Indian places twenty miles away in Twin Falls.

And when we come back to Provo I hope, I pray, that my cooking mania will finally be put to rest. Like Prospero I will break my wooden stirring spoon and throw my cookbooks into the ocean.

Asked & Answered. Part Two.

 

How would you describe a perfect day when you were young?

 

Waffles.  Summer.  Como Zoo.  Hot dogs.  Comic books.  Bike along the Mississippi.  

Steaks on the grill.  Toasted marshmallows.  Bats chasing my sisters.  No bed until dark.

 

What have you learned about yourself from being a parent?

You're never too old to wish they'd bring you a jar of pickled herring. 

What is your earliest memory?

I remember a horse in our garage on 18th Avenue S.E. in Minneapolis, before we moved to our home on 19th Avenue S.E.  But nobody else remembers that -- my parents and older siblings are vociferous in denying there was ever any horse in the garage.  I think it's a cover up.   

How would you like to be remembered?

As a dandelion on the putting green. 

What advice do you have for young couples?

Don't try to paint the same picture. 

 

What lessons has your work life taught you?

Stay out of offices and factories.  Always picture your boss naked. 

Have you experienced any miracles?

Amy is my continuing miracle, like the burning bush. Giving off heat and light yet never consumed. 

When you meet God, what do you want to say?

What happened to all those socks I lost? 

How do you imagine your death?

Final. 

Moving Advertising for 'Poet for Hire.'

 

so, for those of you following my 'poet for hire' strategy, the donut giveaway was a bust.  one young couple stopped for donuts, asked what i was doing, so i gave them my business card.  and that was it.  nothing else happened.  so amy and i ate the rest of the donuts.  the best way to eat a stale donut is to nuke it in the microwave for 12 seconds. oh yeah, i started the idea as a chicken salad giveaway -- me with a sign that said 'free chicken salad.'  but i didn't want to hassled with bowls and spoons and sloppy chicken salad. so i switched to donuts.  stale donuts.  2 dozen for three dollars.

today i decided to step up my poet for hire game by taking my sign out onto State Street, right next to the Fresh Market corner where the traffic turns to go to the airport.

it was hot and windy and i didn't get any money or work.  but here's what DID happen:

 first a 12 year old girl came up to me to ask: "what are you doing?'  

i said:  'i write poetry for money.'

'that's weird' she said and walked away.

then a young man with light brown hair and beard, wearing a dirty black t-shirt, demanded:  'do you know me?'

'nope' i said.

'i'm the town punching bag' he replied proudly.

'you want me to punch you?' i asked him politely. as he walked away he said 'good luck -- i hope they treat you better than me.'

i didn't have time to puzzle that out before a kindly woman said to me: 'i don't have any money, but here's a rice krispy treat.'  i accepted it gratefully.  then she said: 'my grandfather had a favorite poem. this is how it went --

'the higher up the mountain slope the greener grows the grass.'

'and down it cam a billy goat, sliding on its overcoat.'

i told her that was a very nice poem and i might steal it someday.

a few minutes later another kindly lady came up to me with a slim jim and a bag of doritos.  she also had written the address of a homeless shelter where i could stay for the night. when i told her i had an apartment and social security and was just holding the sign for kicks and giggles she started to walk away, taking the slim jim and doritos with her.

'wait a minute!' i said.  'i still want the snacks!'  so she left them with me.

by then my bladder informed me it was time to go home.

i think i'll go back to that corner tomorrow, but earlier before the sun gets hot.

The Marketing of 'Poet for Hire.'

 

so i've been out on the boulevard in front of my apartment building off and on for the past 2 months.

holding up a sign that reads 'poet for hire.'  the first five weeks were amazing -- i made around 200 dollars and was gifted a box of chocolates and a dozen roses. but the past few weeks have seen interest plummet. apparently i'm old news now. people want something different, something exciting, something for nothing. and i'm going to give it to them.

i've decided that from now on instead of sitting out front on the boulevard with my 'poet for hire' sign, i'll be holding a different sign.  today's sign will read:  'free chicken salad!'  anyone who stops will get a free bowl of chicken salad. no strings attached. and when people stop to check it out I will give them one of my 'poet for hire' business cards. they can have the chicken salad for nothing, but if they'd like a unique original poem from me they'll have to pay.  i believe that this gambit should skirt all the city ordinances about serving food w/o a license, panhandling, and sales tax, etc.  I'll only be serving cold salads, and only doing it for an hour at most.

Amy is rather cool to the whole idea. she suggested i do this over at pioneer park, a block away, because that's where the city's homeless congregate. but they don't have any money or any interest in paying for poetry. and i'm trying NOT to run a charity, but a literary business.  still and all the same, she has offered to make my signs for me.  her penmenship is much better than mine.

so we'll see how it goes.  today i'm offering chicken & brown rice salad.  Future offerings, if this thing works out, will include:

krab salad

tuna salad

3 bean salad

 beet salad

celery victor

cobb salad

macaroni salad

potato salad

 

and many others that i haven't invented yet. 

i'm really hoping this will kick start my career as 'poet for hire.'  and if not, well, i'll just enjoy improvising a different kind of salad every day with ingredients on hand!

 

Asked & Answered. Part One.

 

Do you have any nicknames?

I grew up being called Tim by everyone, except my Uncle Louie, who called me 'Bow Tie' because I once wore a little red bow tie to his house one Sunday right after church.   My mother called me Timmy when she was pleased with me, and Timothy when she was about to lower the boom.  As for my dad, I could use the old Henny Youngman joke: "I thought my name was Shut Up until I was seven years old."  When I joined the circus I was christened with several nicknames. Because I wore a stark white face makeup and had prominent canines I was dubbed 'Dracula."  Prince Paul, the famous dwarf clown, called me either 'Schmutz Finger' or 'Heim Potz."  Swede Johnson, a lion-tamer turned clown, called me 'Pinhead.'   Sometimes I was referred to as 'Pete the Pup' in reference to the dog in the Our Gang series, because I had a black circle painted under my right eye.  By the end of my first season with Ringling most everyone was calling me 'Tork.'  That is the name I prefer to be called by friends and acquaintances.  My kids and grand kids now call me 'Grandpa Tim' -- which I like a lot.  For several years, when I worked in radio, I used the name 'Tim Roberts.'  I've also used that as a pen name on some of my earliest writing work.

Where have you lived?

I lived in Minneapolis for the first 18 years of my life.  Most of that time was spent at 900 19th Avenue S. E.  I can still remember our phone number:  612-331-7441.  I kept my legal residence in Minneapolis when I traveled with the circus.  I lived in Patzcuaro, Michoacan, Mexico, when studying pantomime with Sigfrido Aguilar.  Then Laie, Hawaii, and Thailand, during my 2 year proselytizing mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Williston, North Dakota, where I was news director for KGCX Radio and met Amy. Provo, Utah, several times over the years -- and now it's our permanent home.  Wichita, Kansas, when I was Ronald McDonald.  Haines City, Florida, when I worked at Circus world.  Bottineau, North Dakota.  Tioga, North Dakota.  Spencer, Iowa.  Sheldon, Iowa.  Detroit Lakes, Minnesota.  Park Rapids, Minnesota. Woodbridge, Virginia.  Of all the places I visited during my years traveling with the circus, there are two I would especially enjoy living in.  In summer, Duluth, Minnesota -- because of the magnificent Lake Superior. And in winter, Venice, Florida, because of the public fishing pier and public beaches.  But those are only dreams.  During the past few months, as Amy and I have thought about moving out of Valley Villa here in Provo, I have had several very vivid dreams that warned me that we should stay where we are. So we will.

How would you describe your cultural identity?

I've already written about the 'Law of Janten' in a previous post, but I want to repeat it here. Because it is really the cultural environment I grew up in, and the environment I encountered in several places I've lived in as an adult. It was created by the Norwegian novelist Aksel Sandemose to describe the mindset of a rural society:

1. You're not to think you are anything special.
2. You're not to think you are as good as we are.
3. You're not to think you are smarter than we are.
4. You're not to imagine yourself better than we are.
5. You're not to think you know more than we do.
6. You're not to think you are more important than we are.
7. You're not to think you are good at anything.
8. You're not to laugh at us.
9. You're not to think anyone cares about you.
10. You're not to think you can teach us anything.

 I grew up in a culture where having a dog or a cat for a pet was considered a normal middle-class thing. But my folks wouldn't stand for either animal in the house.  Too much mess and too much work, they claimed.  So I was limited to the little green turtles you could buy for a dime at the Woolworth Five & Dime. I think a dog would have been good for me, and I've always felt somehow cheated of one of the rights of boyhood because of that lack.  

I grew up in a fog of cigarette smoke and beer fumes. American culture in the 1950s and early 60s encouraged and glorified tobacco and alcohol as wonderful additions to any adult life. Adult gatherings always featured smoking and beer. Until I joined the LDS Church at 18, I looked forward to puffing and guzzling my way through life as well. 

I identified the culture that surrounded me as American, where communists were the enemy. By communists we meant Russians and Chinese. Both nationalities were suspect.  They would keep trying to take over the world, to nuke us Americans into submission, if we didn't keep eating our spinach and voting Republican. Because the Democrats were soft on communism. Everybody knew that. 

Each night as a child mom would hear my prayers as I knelt by my bed. It was  always the same rote prayer, memorized by the time I was four:

Now I lay me down to sleep.

I pray the Lord my soul to keep.

And if I die before I wake,

I pray the Lord my soul to take.

Mom took us to St Lawrence Catholic Church for Mass every Sunday morning, but other than that a few halfhearted attempts at going to confession, the Catholic culture did not impact my life very much.  Before I the LDS Church was introduced to me, I was learning towards becoming a Quaker. 

In some of the classes I took at the U of M the younger white students occassionally admitted that they had no traditions, no culture, to ground them. They said this mournfully, as if their parents had abused them somehow.  They referred to it as 'white bread culture.'  I think they got all that hooey from sociology books.  Me, I never gave any thought to the culture or milieu I was raised in -- I grew up in it, I thought I had escaped it, then found myself back in the same stew of prejudices and preconceptions.  But finally the Gospel of Jesus Christ has worked most of the cultural knots out of me.

What is a First of May?

 

FIRST OF MAY

In circus lingo a ‘first of may’ is a boy who runs away from home to join the circus and is put to work as an apprentice clown.  The name stems from the traditional opening date of tented circuses – the first day in May. That is when the dirt roads in most of the country were dry enough for circus wagons to leave their winter quarters in Indiana, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, or Florida. We are talking of long ago, over a hundred and fifty years gone past. I’m not quite THAT old, but when I joined Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Circus in 1971 I was labeled a ‘first of may’ by veteran colleagues in clown alley.

Red Skelton started his career as a first of may with the Al. G. Barnes Circus during the 1920’s. 

Burt Lancaster joined the big top as a first of may late in the 1920’s. But quickly skyrocketed to star status as an acrobat/trapeze flier, along with his partner Nick Cravat. You can see him doing several circus routines with his partner Nick in the movie “The Crimson Pirate.”

First of mays, apprentice clowns, traditionally were not allowed to create their own makeups. They were instructed in putting on a classical whiteface make up, and that’s what they had to stay with until they had completed at least one full season with the show. Then they could switch to any kind of clown makeup they pleased.

I started out as a whiteface, not because I had to, but because my thin facial features looked good in whiteface. In my thirties I switched to an auguste makeup, one that emphasized the eyes and mouth with white while the rest of the face was flesh-toned. I did this because Stein’s Clown White (the only decent clown white makeup on the market) seals all the pores on your face, making it itch like all get out. On hot days when the perspiration couldn’t come through the skin on my face I used a large feather to frantically sweep across my face – I couldn’t very well scratch because that would streak the makeup.

Naturally a first of may did all the grunt work in clown alley. It was my job to mix up tubs of shaving cream from shredded bars of Old Spice shaving soap. This goo was used in all our pie fights. Real cream or fruit fillings in a pie would have knocked you unconscious when received in the kisser. Plus your makeup would be completely destroyed. Shaving cream in a can was too thin and light and wouldn’t hold together in a pie tin. It wouldn’t travel any distance, either. I’ll always associate the scent of bay rum with my days as a first of may. 

I was also tasked with blowing up the balloons for the balloon chase. There was no air compressor or foot pump in clown alley. I had to blow up twenty-five balloons for each show. I did each one with my parched lips and aching lungs. These were put on a stick, then given to one of the vendors (known in the circus as a ‘candy-butcher’) to carry through the audience during the come-in (when the clowns warmed up the audience before the show started.) At some point a clown would grab the balloons away from the vendor and a merry chase would ensue, with the enraged vendor chasing said clown around the arena, while the original clown handed off the balloons to various other clowns. The blow off came when the last clown carrying the balloon tripped and fell on the balloons, creating a terrific but harmless popping noise.

A first of may had no say in creating any gags. He was given gag assignments by the producing clown – in my case, a veteran funster named Mark Anthony – who once carved a life-sized elephant out of foam rubber, hollowed it out, then painted it to look exactly like a real pachyderm, so it could be used in the famous disappearing elephant magic act.

Mark gave me a cheap paper parasol with a rubber ball attached to fishing line. The line had a hoop at the other end. I put the hoop over the tip of the parasol and then strolled about twirling the parasol, apparently balancing the rubber ball on the very edge of it. When I took my bow the ball swung loosely on the line to reveal the trick. It was a gag with whiskers on it. So eventually I came up with my own gag. I bought a large yellow plastic banana and walked around the arena with it stuck in my ear. My gag is meaningless today, but back in the early 70s there was a popular kid’s joke that went:

"Hey, you've got a banana in your ear!"

"What?"

"I said, YOU'VE GOT A BANANA IN YOUR EAR!"

"What? I can't hear you; I've got a banana in my ear!"

Believe me, my clown gag was a panic. Kids screamed themselves hoarse telling me I had a banana in my ear, while all I did was shake my head and mouth the words: “I can’t hear you, I have a banana in my ear.”

Mark Anthony was not happy with my departure from circus tradition. To show his displeasure he put me in the clown car, as the bottom member of the entourage that pours out of the tiny vehicle when it drives into center ring. There were any number of larger clowns than me who by rights should have been on the bottom of the pile of wretched men packed in like sardines; but Mark made sure I got that position, which left me nearly suffocated after each performance.

First of mays had to participate in all the dancing numbers at Ringling Brothers. There was Opening, Spanish Web, Spec, Elephant Menage, and Finale. As low buffoon on the totem pole, I was always placed directly behind an elephant in all of these numbers. Need I say more? I quickly learned how to side step around bales of steaming manure. Unfortunately I was not allowed to wear a gas mask. Elephants have an eclectic and undiscerning appetite, sucking up everything from cigar butts to rotten fruit. The resulting gaseous miasma could have fired a power plant.

I never felt put upon as a first of may for having to do all the grunt work and for taking instruction from my comedic elders. I loved being a vassal in that whimsical kingdom, which now exists only in picture books like other fairy tales.

The first of May is a holiday in many parts of the world, celebrating workers' right to unionize. But to me it will always be remembered as those hallowed inaugural months when first I put on the motley and slap shoes for a living.

Evan Gershkovich

 

 

Evan Gershkovich  (American Reporter Being Detained in Jail in Russia.)

 

 

Russians think reporters trained

in the truth should be detained.

Truth and facts and liberal views

aren't considered lawful news.

Like the Red Queen often said

when in doubt 'off with his head!'

 

Traintracks.

 

I loved railroad tracks as a boy.

Their limitless horizon pulled me along them with a hidden hunger, a promise of total happiness at the end of the line. In some huge railroad depot mansion where my longings were met and my fears unloaded and buried like clinkers.

Railroad tracks were also an unending source of material for boyish construction and collection.

Descending to specifics, I remember my first train ride. My mother took us children to the Milwaukee Road station in downtown Minneapolis to take the local to Red Wing for a look-see at pottery. That would be me, Sue Ellen, and Linda. She bought a glazed crock for making sauerkraut, but only ever used it as an umbrella stand or to put cattails in during the fall. She considered sauerkraut declasse. 

Those Milwaukee Road tracks reeked of creosote and the constant kiss of hot metal. I stared down at them mesmerized, almost ready to leap down and wallow in the oily granite chips that buoyed up the wooden ties.

A firm yank from my mother pulled me back from an untimely grave. But from that moment on I was hooked on railroad tracks; what ran on them, how they smelled, what they produced in the way of loot, and the flora and fauna that flourished along their side.

There was a rail yard near our house on 19th Avenue SE in Minneapolis. Only two blocks away. The moan of diesel engine whistles was as common as birdsong. That railyard was overshadowed by monumental cement grain elevators that brooded in the sunlight like trolls, a halo of pigeons endlessly circling each one. Old rickety wooden warehouses lined some of the tracks; they seemed permanently boarded up – inviting incipient pilferers such as my friends and I to break inside. Tear away the cobwebs and discover abandoned crates of sardine tins or Ming vases packed in excelsior.

But our larcenous instincts were still held in check by our mothers’ constant admonitions to ‘keep your nose clean,’ with the implied threat that ignoring their counsel would inevitably lead to hair brushes and/or belt straps being applied to tender young bottoms with unexampled vigor.

So we walked along the tracks on deep summer days, collecting various items of interest. Rusty and bent railroad spikes. I kept my collection of these useless articles in the garage, up on a ledge where the wooden wall met the roof. They remained sacrosanct, then forgotten, until years later when a new garage door was installed; the vibrations of the various tools used in the operation dislodged the rusty spikes, which came raining down on the workmen like blunt spears. It took a good bit of sweet talking on my mother’s part to get the workmen to finish the job. And the look she gave me afterwards would have curdled the Milky Way.

We laid pennies on the track when a train approached. The copper coins (and they WERE copper back then) flattened out nicely into thin ovals.

In the fall the cattails and the milkweed pods ripened along the train tracks. That called for an all-out cattail war or milkweed pummeling contest. When we finished we looked like the inside of a mattress. 

And the half-consumed sulfur flares! These were manna from heaven to a pyromaniac like me. I gathered up a dozen or more to take over to Jimmy Antone’s garage, where we gouged out the sulfur and stuffed it into a pipe capped at one end. Then lit it. The resulting brimstone rocket thrust would last for fifteen minutes or more. How we managed to never burn down the Antone garage is beyond me.    

Frogs, salamanders, and turtles, luxuriated in the sun where the railroad tracks rose above swampy ground. Grown fat and careless with easy pickings, they were easy prey for our Twins baseball caps. Like a cat bringing a dead bird into the house, I often brought my damp hatful of dazed amphibians into the kitchen to dump in the sink. This was not received well by the kitchen slavey – aka my mother. I was summarily ordered to remove said slimy things into the backyard PDQ. Where I let them slither and slide away to their dehydrated fate. 

When I joined Ringling Brothers as a First of May I got my own room on the circus train. That meant untold hours living with and on railroad tracks. Such an existence never grew stale or tiresome to me.

In fact on sleepless nights (you get a lot of those after you turn 70 – or at least I do) I still like to imagine myself on a set of tracks, with semaphore signals clanging in the distance, looking up at a water tower, or a gantry winking away. Someday soon, I guess, I’ll be taking that long last walk down the tracks of the Celestial Railroad, to find that everlasting Depot.