She wore a tuxedo for her senior portrait. The yearbook left her photo out. (WaPo)

 

(dedicated to Sarah Knowles)

I stepped out my door and there was a streetcar waiting for me. An old fashioned streetcar, with clanging bells and a conductor dressed in a dark suit with a tin change dispenser and everything. This was so unexpected and insane that I asked the conductor if he stopped at Crazy Henry's place. "That's our only stop this run" he replied, as he punched a ticket and handed it to me.

"Saints and wickets preserve me" I muttered as I sat on the mahogany bench that ran the length of the car. 

As soon as I got to Crazy Henry's place I told him what happened. He didn't seem to think it was out of the ordinary, and I began to think maybe I dreamed the whole thing. My daydreams are becoming more and more real to me these days, as the world tears itself apart. Mutter and peep, mutter and peep, is all I do anymore.

Crazy Henry wanted to show me his new tuxedo, made out of red velvet -- the kind they used to use for red velour ropes at the movie palace. 

"What in the world do you want a thing like that for?" I asked him derisively, already forgetting the magic of the streetcar I had just experienced. 

"I'm going to walk down the street and make people smile" he replied. "Wanna go with me?"

My initial response was to tell him he was a fool and I would have nothing to do with his folly -- but he did look good in that red velvet tuxedo, and I thought that maybe some of that good looking would rub off on me if I stayed by his side.

"Oh, all right" I relented, pretending to be irritated at him. "But only to keep you out of trouble."

So we strolled down Como Avenue together, Crazy Henry in his bright red tuxedo and me in black sweat pants and a gray hoodie. And people did smile at him as we passed -- lots of people. One handsome young woman stopped him to ask "Are you the Vita-Goodie Man? Can I have your autograph?" Crazy Henry just patted her on the shoulder and told her to run along and keep a low profile.

When we reached the end of Como Avenue there was that same streetcar again. I pointed it out to Crazy Henry, but he was too busy scratching himself all over to take any notice.

"Gosh" he said, "I forgot that I'm allergic to velvet. I'm gettin' a terrific rash here!" 

"Let's take the streetcar back to your place so you can change out of that monkey suit and take a bath with baking soda" I suggested. But Crazy Henry started running towards our old high school down the block, yelling back at me that he was going to the prom. I got on the streetcar and asked the conductor where he was going this time.

"To the Marmalade Fields" he replied, punching a ticket to give to me along with a sugared baby wipe.

"Is this trip really necessary?" I asked him. He didn't answer, but instead turned into a barber pole. And that didn't bother me at all. 

Covenant with the Lord

For the Lord covenanteth with none save it be with them that repent and believe in his Son, who is the Holy One of Israel.
2 Nephi 30:2

Bind yourself unto the Lord after you repent,

and life becomes more pleasant and your time will be well spent.

Believe in Jesus Christ, who has redeemed us from the fall;

then seek the keys of covenant and shun this mortal squall.

The one and only Gatekeeper, the Man from Galilee,

will yoke you very gently to a blest eternity.

Are goats the new weed whackers? Plenty of people want them to be. (WaPo)

In rural Thailand they use geese to mow their lawns and keep the weeds down. If there were any goats around I didn't see them. I think goats get to smelling so bad in the tropics that not even a peasant farmer can stand it. Thais are certainly particular about smells -- they bathe several times a day when they have the chance. And many of them told me that 'farangs' (foreigners) smell bad because we don't bathe often enough and eat too much meat.

When I worked for Carson & Barnes Five Ring Circus they had a petting zoo that had a bunch of goats. Persian goats, Manx goats, Patched goats, and African jumping goats. There was one guy in charge of washing the goats every day, so that kids could pet them without starting to gag on the smell. I didn't envy him his job; he was a cousin to the trapeze act, from Chile, and had tagged along, or been kidnapped, just because he was very docile and amenable to any kind of crap work. Those goats would butt him in the belly all day long, while he used a yellow bar of laundry soap to lather 'em up. I suppose the soap got in their eyes and really stung; that's why they hated the poor guy so much. At the end of the season they ganged up on him and devoured him, right down to his flip flops.

A few years back I was in a homeless shelter in Virginia where the residents were tasked with taking care of a big vegetable garden and clipping Angora goats for their wool. I was lucky enough to be assigned to weeding turnips, so I never had to deal with the goats at all. They spoke Portuguese, I don't know why. The goats did, not the people tending them. The goat tenders only spoke in curse words, from what I ever heard. At night the goats would climb into the locust trees to roost. It was a nice homeless shelter; I was sorry when it burned down a few weeks after I got there. The fire was started by one of the goats smoking in a locust tree and falling asleep. But we sure had a lot of savory roasted goat for the next couple of days while we lived in tents. 

For many people in medical debt, a trip to the emergency room leads to the courtroom (WaPo)

"So far this year, Poplar Bluff Regional Medical Center has filed more than 1,100 lawsuits for unpaid bills in a rural corner of Southeast Missouri, where emergency medical care has become a standoff between hospitals and patients who are both going broke. Unpaid medical bills are the leading cause of personal debt and bankruptcy in the United States according to credit reports."   (from the Washington Post, by Eli Saslow.)

A pauper who lived in Missouri

was sued by his doctors in fury.

They wanted mazuma,

were in an ill huma,

and turned his poor life into slurry.

Faith-based Hate in Greece

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — The Metropolitan Amvrosios of Kalavryta, a fiery conservative Greek Orthodox bishop known for criticizing, often in intemperate terms, those who he believed acted in a "non-Christian" or "non-Greek" way, including gays, migrants and politicians, resigned Sunday.

Amvrosios, 81, announced his resignation Sunday at Mass. He has served in the diocese of Kalavryta, in southern Greece, since 1978.

The Metropolitan achieved notoriety for his support of the far-right, anti-immigrant Golden Dawn party. A blog post he wrote about gays in 2015 — calling them "the scum of society" and urging people to spit on them — led to his being convicted by a local court of hate speech in January 2019. He was given a seven-month suspended sentence.

In October 2017, he directed priests in his diocese to ring church bells each day, at noon for three minutes and for one week, to protest what he called an "anti-Christian and anti-Greek" law making it easier for people to officially change their gender.

Faith-based hate is growing like a noxious weed these days.

It's poisoning the landscape with abuse instead of praise.

The harvest of this evil is not long to be perceived,

leaving victims scattered, shattered, while innocents have grieved.

How foolish to pretend that God, the Father of us all,

instead of wanting us to fly commands that some must crawl.

Holiness and sanctity are not the devil's job;

he delights to proselyte with any angry mob.

O house of Israel, is my hand shortened at all that it cannot redeem, or have I no power to deliver?

 O house of Israel, is my hand shortened at all that it cannot redeem, or have I no power to deliver? 

2 Nephi 7:2

The heathen and unchurched abide

in their great unchristian pride;

never giving Christ the space

to enfold them in his grace.

But I judge them not at all,

since I too, with Adam's fall,

struggle sometimes with conviction

when I'm faced with keen affliction.

So my prayer will always be:

Redeemer, please help strengthen me!

Postcard to the President

Everything beautiful in his time

He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.
Ecclesiastes 3:11

His endless works in beauty dwell;

Our praise and awe they do compel.

Where'er we look, where'er we go,

His pleasing signature doth flow.

And we his comely servants be

When we obey him faithfully.