I know something I can't tell

 I know something I can't tell.

Something big and deep and swell.

From my studies long and hard

comes a secret avant garde.

Sharing with the world my lore

would cause riots evermore.

So I keep it wrapped up tight

until I find an acolyte.

Circus Memories: And now for something patriotic.

 

 

this is what i said in fast & testimony meeting today, but greatly expanded.

fifty years ago God blessed me with the most wonderful job in the world. i was a clown with ringling brothers circus. it was the biggest show there was. we had over a thousand performers. many of them came from behind the iron curtain. you remember the iron curtain? countries like poland and hungary were controlled by russia -- nobody got in or out without their say-so. a lot of the best circus schools were behind the iron curtain so we had a swede named trolle rhodein who went over to those countries to look over the talent and bribe the government to let an outstanding troupe of acrobats or jugglers spend a season in the united states. but those cagey iron curtain governments made sure that each group that came over here left behind a hostage -- grandparents, a kid, or even a spouse. that was to insure they would return behind the iron curtain when their tour was done and not seek asylum with uncle sam. which they all wanted to do. those iron curtain performers loved america better than i did.

i was just an 18 year old punk back then, and had never thought too much about the blessing of living in a free land like the usa. in fact, while i was a senior in high school i had contacted an anti-war group and got a bus ticket to canada, in case my draft number was too low and they called me up. no way was i going to vietnam.

luckily my draft number was very high so i was never called up. instead i got to join the circus as a first of may -- a first year clown.

so one day in clown alley mac the bus driver came by to deliver the mail. he got paid five dollars extra a week for stopping by the local post office to pick up any general delivery mail for performers. one of the clowns got a love letter from the irs -- telling him he owed a bunch of back taxes. he didn't take that well. he began ranting and raving, cursing the president and congress and vowing to never ever pay one red cent to the crummy corrupt government which was full of crooks and blankity-blank mother lovers. 

just then stancho, a bulgarian acrobat, was walking by clown alley (which was cordoned off from the hallway by nothing more than cheap blue cotton curtains) and heard this clown blow his top. Stancho burst into clown alley and picked up the cursing clown right off his feet.  need i mention that stancho was a big husky fellow? anyway, he shook that frightened clown like a rag doll, all the while saying in broken english: "you shut up your face! america is great place! lots good things here for you and you free to go where you want, do any what you want. not me! i got to go back to stinking bulgaria and those curvas (a nasty russian obscenity) and listen to them barking at me! you shut up and be glad you here, not in bulgaria!"

my clown compatriot quickly settled down and begged stancho's pardon. otherwise i think stancho would have punched his head down into his shoulders.

but that got me thinking about my country. and i've been thinking about it ever since. and this much i can tell you (remember that this is fast & testimony meeting);  Jesus Christ is lord and master of the whole earth, but he has a special interest in our land. it says so in the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants. when he comes back to rule and reign he will come back to this country, this land of ours, to begin his millennial administration. until then his prophets speak for him, and we'd better listen to them or we're liable to be picked up and shaken like a rag doll ourselves!  Amen.

(BTW: stancho did get to stay in america. he was corresponding with a lady pig farmer in iowa and when the show played des moines he took off, found her amidst the sows and slop, and began pitching woo. they were married in a few weeks. stancho quit the show, studied for his citizenship test, and passed with flying colors. you never saw a man so happy to be standing knee deep in pig shit. american pig shit.)

Thailand Mission Memories: I get punched in the nose.

 

amy has gone up to idaho to do chores on her sister's farm.  whenever city life gets her down -- which is about once a month -- she takes off for idaho to milk the cow and feed the chickens and talk to her sister about the kind of esoteric religious subjects 'The Encyclopedia of Mormonism' never covered.  in the past i have gone with her -- i even gave amy's sister a rocker recliner for her living room so i would have someplace comfortable to sit when i was there. but this time i had to say, as lovingly and as kindly as i know how, "enough is enough."

it's not that i don't like my in-laws. it's just that i have worked to make our apartment a comfortable place for us to be. now that the damn bedbugs are finally gone, i don't ever want to go anyplace overnight again. i cherish the blessing of sleeping in my own bed every night, and preparing food in my own kitchen every day. today i'm trying a new recipe for roast pork in the slow cooker.  i have covered the roast with a thick greasy flap of pig skin (which cost exactly 89 cents from the butcher.) the french call this kind of cooking 'lardon.'  it's supposed to keep the roast pork very tender and juicy while adding an intense layer of flavor to it.

and i'm on a reading binge with rex stout's great detective nero wolfe. 

in other words, i'm comfortable and happy -- and why should i uproot myself for several days just to smell the manured fields of wendell idaho? 

so amy has gone and i'm here at home, with plenty of quiet peaceful time to do as i please. and what pleases me is to write write write. 

so this is the story of the time i got punched in the nose on my mission.

it was all president brown's fault. i was no great shakes as a baptizer and my memorization and recitation of the discussions in thai was always pretty shaky at best. but president brown got it into his head that i had a special talent for straightening out 'problem elders.' so for a period of several months i was assigned to various elders who were getting close to being sent home because of their bad attitudes and disobedience.

i was assigned to work with elder johnson. back in colorado he was an apprentice to his father, who was a plumber. as i've always suspected, plumbers are robbing us blind, because even as an apprentice elder johnson made an obscene amount of money doing nothing but tightening leaky faucets. or so he said.

he slept in late. he stole food from the kitchen that was meant for our dinner. he had a serious relationship going on with a thai girl and was always trying to duck out on me so he could go see her alone.  i was very mild and non-judgemental with him. then one day he put his scriptures on top of the refrigerator. now you must understand that there was a mission rule that the top of the refrigerator was to be kept clear at all times. a memo had gone out to each companionship emphasizing this little housekeeping commandment. i have no idea why the mission office wanted to emphasize this bit of nonsense so much, but they did.  so we kept the top of the fridge clear. so when elder johnson put his scriptures up there one afternoon i gently reminded him of the mission rule and asked him to please take them off.

that's when he punched me right in the nose. luckily he telegraphed his move so i could step back. his punch didn't even draw blood, but it hurt like hell.  i wanted to strike back at him, of course.  but the spirit whispered to me to be as meek and mild as a lamb. so i just said "i wish you hadn't done that" and walked away from him.

i guess my reaction was the straw that broke the missionary's back, because a few moments later he came to me in tears to apologize and promised he'd straighten up and fly right from that moment on.

well, he did improve for the next few weeks. he got up on time. left the food alone in the kitchen. even ditched the thai chick. then it was time for transfers and i never saw him again except at the annual mission conference. 

i imagine that elder johnson went back to colorado after his mission with the light of the gospel shining in his eyes, married a good woman, had half a dozen children, became a bishop or stake president, and got filthy stinking rich as a plumber. 

May his tribe increase.  now it's time to go answer all the emails amy has been sending me this morning . . .

U.S. newspapers continuing to die at rate of 2 each week (AP)

 U.S. newspapers continuing to die at rate of 2 each week   (AP)

 

I don't know how much truth resides

when newspapers set up as guides.

But whether fact or puerile pap,

I subscribe for Andy Capp.

I like the crossword, but not the caprices

of columnists and their opinion pieces.

Still, I think it cause to mourn

when a journal is unborn.

Full of blarney they can be,

but yet their content beats TV. 

Alas, there isn't any sect

that will a newspaper resurrect.

Even money, piles of gold,

can't restore those rags of old.

 Fading fast, at two each week,

the newspaper is ancient Greek.

 

 

Today's Timericks: Supreme Court Limits Power of EPA, Other Regulatory Agencies

 

If you've got a bone to pick

with the EPA, be quick!

Agencies like them will soon

be as sterile as the Moon.

With the High Court set to kill

ev'ry Bureau on the Hill!

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

 

I have never had success.

I am just a dolt, I guess.

Bank account? It runs on fumes.

Gourmet food? It's all legumes.

Still, I am contented now --

I have my home, my health, my frau!

 

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

 

I will sing of great lasagna;

it's even good when spilled upon ya.

Chunks of meat and mozzarella;

it makes me quite a happy fella.

A pity wine so pricey is;

cuz pasta soars with that ripe fizz.

Narrative Poem: No Reply.

 I saw a small boy with red hair

in a white shirt at church.

Rather, I saw the back of his head.

I never saw his face. 

But that red hair was 

very distinctive.

Walking down the hall

after Sunday School

I saw that same red-headed

boy again.

Only, he was wearing a 

black and white gingham

dress. Maybe it was his

sister.

I stopped and smiled at him.

He looked up at me with a

solemn frown on his face.

A lot of kids get that frown

after a long church service.

I needed to hear his voice,

or her voice,

to decide if this was

a boy or girl.

"That's pretty bright red

hair you've got there" I

told him. Or her.

"My father's a Marine"

he replied in a voice

unmistakably male.

Then I knew him.

The Bledsoe family.

They lived down the street from

me. The father was never home and

the mother seemed to have over a 

dozen kids running around the place

all the time.

"Your mother runs a daycare, right?"

I asked him, feeling loutish.

In reply he handed me a stiff

white card and walked away.

The card read: "No Reply."

When I looked up the kid was gone.

Vanished.

In fact, when I looked up 

I was not longer in church.

I was at a marine base somewhere

down South. I could smell

the turpentine stills.

"Hey Sergeant!" yelled a man

I recognized as Mr. Bledsoe.

He was in uniform.

He walked towards me.

"We got another one!"

Narrative Poem: The Wrong Wife.

 

 

"You're doing it all wrong"

my wife said.

"So you say" I replied shortly.

"You'll break the whole thing"

she insisted.

"I know what I'm doing"

I said patiently. "Just

keep your shirt on and

I'll show you."

Just then the hinge snapped in

two.

"That's it" she said bitterly.

"We might as well break out a bottle

of wine and forget about it."

"Wait, what?" I said, bewildered.

My wife has never taken a drink in her life.

"You don't drink."

"Says who?" she said. Then she looked 

closely at me.

And I put my glasses on to look more

closely at her.

"You're not Manny" she said to me.

"And you're not Suzy" I said to her.

"How did you get in here, anyway?"

she asked me.

"This is my house" I said."Isn't it?"

I looked around the living room.

But it wasn't my house.

"Your house?" I asked nervously.

She looked uneasy.

"It's not my house. I don't know

where we are."

"How did we get here? What's 

the last thing you remember?" I 

asked her urgently.

"I was hoeing turnips" she said.

"I was peeling shrimp" I said. 

"In the backyard with the kids."

"You have kids?" she asked me.

"No, I guess I don't" I said.

"But it seemed like the right thing

to say."

A man came into the living room.

He had wild black hair and icy blue

eyes.

"Who the hell are you two?" he said furiously.

"Get out of my house before 

I call the cops!"

We both ran out the front door. 

She went left and I went right.

I stumbled over the gravel and weeds.

Because there was no sidewalk.

That's the trouble with the 

suburbs -- 

they don't put in sidewalks.  

Today's Timericks: Senate passes most significant gun control legislation in decades

 the senate moves at lightning speed

to meet our nation's ev'ry need.

at long long last out of the mire --

they passed a bill about gunfire!

now all we ever have to dread

is how they shoot off their mouth instead. 

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

the us mail is not a farce

nor are its virtues very sparse.

it goes through wind and hail and rain,

and then returns to sender again.

and if my poetry don't scan

don't blame it on the old mailman!

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

the world is running out of wheat;

with bread becoming trick or treat.

our flour soon will be tree bark,

with pancakes made from ditto mark.

if leaders want to make this cease

they should commit to total peace.

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

My wife's the handyman, in that

I hammer like a baseball bat.

I have more thumbs than bees have wax,

and cannot even hit thumb tacks.

And so at home I sit around

and let her paint and frame and pound.

Fed’s Jerome Powell to Head to the House With Interest Rates in Focus Central-bank chief has signaled a new 0.75-percentage-point rise is possible in July to fight inflation

 

I do not get these interest rates;

they're high because inflation

threatens to engulf us

as a people and a nation?

Excuse my economics, please,

but that is Greek to me.

My finance chops are shaky,

but it seems a fantasy.

Rather, let the Central Bank

it's assets give away --

so we can squander it at will

with one more big payday.

And then we all can live in tents

and vinyl records play.

Bugs in Thailand. A Personal Memoir.

 

You’ve all heard about our bug situation here in Provo, so i won’t belabor that dismal situation any further except to say that the provo city housing authority has authorized a thermal strike on our apartment. We have to be out of it all day on Thursday so they can bring in a furnace of sorts to heat our place up to 120 degrees for eight hours, which should kill every living organism in the place. Plus melt all our electronics, like computers, and wilt all the wall hangings – so we’ll have to lug all that stuff out onto the patio for the day. Even our big screen tv. 

Which is merely a preamble to my recollections of bugs in thailand when i was just a wee missionary there. 48 years ago. How is that possible? I haven’t lived that long, and neither have any of you. We should be bent and wizened fossils, cackling toothlessly over a game of checkers in some nursing home. But instead we have wives and build or repair houses and eat good solid meals with our own teeth still. I don’t get it. Why is time standing still for us? I think there was something in the air in thailand, or something we ate there, like som tum, that slowed down the aging process. We’ve all passed out second childhoods without noticing it, and are now working on our third childhoods . . .

Anywho – back to the bugs.

Nobody ever warned me there would be so many varieties of bugs in thailand, or that they would be so pervasive and aggressive, getting in my face like a grade school bully.

I took a brand new electric shaver in a smart leather case with me to thailand; a gift from my elders quorum in minneapolis. One morning in bangkapi i opened the case in the bathroom and lo and behold a huge flying cockroach was nestled inside. It gave me a nonchalant look as it shivered its wings. I shrieked and dropped the case, breaking the electric razor into pieces. I couldn’t afford another electric razor, so i had to revert to the barbaric practice of scraping my chin with a cheap plastic blade. The scabs made it hard for me to apply my clown makeup evenly. 

Elder ah ching was a big strapping hawaiian elder, unafraid of man or beast. His motto, when taxed by his companion elder nebeker for being somewhat lackadaisical in missionary work, was to say ‘i just want to be an angel.’ there were three companionships that shared a communal bedroom, i recall, and we kept after the maid to get rid of the wall geckos, which had overrun the place.

‘No’ said elder ah ching, ‘you want them around because they keep the cockroaches down.’ but he changed his tune one night when a gecko on the ceiling lost its footing and fell into his open, snoring, mouth. His screams not only woke the rest of us up, but nearly and  prematurely propelled us into the telestial kingdom.

We had to place each leg of our beds in bowls of turpentine, lest the little white ants crawl up the bed legs and onto our mattress – there to wander restlessly over our bodies each night, silently chewing on our epidermis. 

On tour with the singing group in phitsanulok one evening, elder wright was crooning a thai love ballad – and how those thai ladies loved his voice! There were several large stage lights on him, which attracted a bevy of flying creatures from out of the night sky. Just as he opened his mouth to hit a mellow chord, something large and scaly flew into his mouth. And he swallowed it. He was out of action for the rest of that show. He couldn’t even play the pump organ for me during my clown act at intermission. He was a great accompanist. He knew all the waltz tunes and circus marches i liked. In fact, he got to the point where he didn’t even notice what he was playing during my act anymore, and would segue into a church hymn, like master the tempest is raging, playing it in ragtime, without even noticing.

The infamous mot dang, red fire ants, were ubiquitous in certain rural areas. If you were foolish enough to walk through a weedy field in those areas you picked up dozens of ‘em on your pants legs, and if you didn’t brush them off quickly enough they gave you an almighty painful bite that would blister for a week.

A centipede crawled up my leg one afternoon as i was giving a discussion to a startled thai family – who wondered why joseph smith’s story had to be told with a frenzied irish jig.

But certainly you have your own tales to tell when it comes to bugs in thailand, so i’ll cut short this particular ramble down memory lane. Besides, it’s nearly 6 a.m. and i have to make a greenbean and frankfurter casserole to serve for brunch this morning. Amy has been after me to use up the five cans of green beans we have in the pantry. So i’ll mix ‘em with some cream of mushroom soup and a package of hotdogs, top the whole thing with some process cheese and cracker crumbs, then bake the whole shebang in a casserole dish to serve with leftover cornbread from yesterday. When you make cornbread right it is crunchy and slightly grainy and lasts for a week or more. Because so many people complained about our meal yesterday – it was vegetable soup (because meat is too damn expensive) with cornbread, and some of the old ladies complained because it was vegan and because the pieces of cornbread we served out (all for free, mind you) were so small. So I told myself it’s time to quit this racket and move on to some other kind of service. Like temple work. Then someone i had never seen before came by and dropped twenty dollars into the kitty without even asking for a bowl of soup. That’s why there’s going to be green bean casserole today.

And then we’re going to the temple, too, this afternoon, to do initiatory proxy work.