Thursday, May o5, 2o16
Yes, the month of May is my BIRTHDAY MONTH. Yes, I know that some would say that I'm being rather greedy claiming the whole month for myself. However, I am going to be 68 years old on the
23rd and that should be enough of a reason to say to myself and the world, "
I deserve a whole MONTH dedicated to the celebration of my BIRTH, damn it!" And yes, I know, that some of you out there thinks that longevity in and of itself does not justify my commandeering an entire month! And to be totally honest, I'm sure that in today's market you could sell to the public that reaching the age of 68 is actually any kind of accomplishment. There are many more people in this 21st century of ours that are far older than me. But in my defense, if you knew about my past, the life I've led, the dangerous adventures I have been on during my existence on this physical plane, you would concur with my conclusion . . . it's been a crazy-ass journey . . . but no crazier than any other human's journey. But totally honest, my life hasn't been all that important to anyone except me. And sometimes, in the anemic hours between black and white, I'm not even sure my life is even that important a thing to me. But enough of this gloomy, myopic gobbledygook! It's my BIRTHDAY MONTH!
I rummage through the shoebox where I keep all the pictures of myself in. "
Oh, you are so narcissistic." she says. But no I am not. I gotta few, yes, pictures from my younger days, but there really aren't that many. Not enough, at the least, to call me names! That's me on the left . . . no, on the right there. I've been told that this pic was taken when I was 6 months old! Which would make it November 23, 1948, give or take. November 23 fell on a Tuesday in the year 1948. Truman just won (the 2nd of November) reelection. Well, he didn't really win reelection. Vice President Truman had
taken over the POTUS mantel because Roosevelt died in 1945. A big movie at the time was
The Boy With Green Hair. Yes, I didn't SEE it when I was 6 months old! Or II did, I don't remember it! However, when I was maybe 6 years old I do remember seeing it on TV. A pretty moving little movie about a kid who is ostracized from the town he lived because his hair turned green! And I think I saw it on TV when I was 6 or 7 or 8 and I remember how much it moved me even as a little kid. I guess it was a sort of scary story because this little kid, older than me but still little, was forced to cut his hair and leave the town he lived in, and he was all alone in the woods and . . . you know I'm getting a creepy feeling just talking about it. Can you imagine? 62 years later and I still get creeped out just thinking about a movie I watched when I was 6? Sure, I mean, I've always been effected by movies. You know that saying about kids brought up by TV? That's me. Parents would go out drinking on a Friday/Saturday night and I would stay home in this big old scary house we lived in and watch TV until I fell asleep on the floor. Mom would give me a pillow and a blanket before she left for the bar. Sometimes she would make me popcorn, popcorn for me, make sure I had the phone number of the bar that she and my dad were going to just in case something happened . . . and then a short, ruby red kiss on the forehead and they were gone for the night.
Friday, May o6, 2o16
Remembering a lot of little things that happened when I was a kid. Just little moments that, for whatever reasons, have stuck to the inside of my brain. Here's a few.
1. Floating a SPAM can in a muddy pot whole. Accidently rubbed the edge with my finger and damn! Blood spilling out of my index like facet. Mud turns reddish gray!
2. Waking up in a doctor's office. Confused, crying. Mom comes in, wraps her arms around me and explains. I was riding my bicycle in the parking of the factory where mom ran a punch press. The factory was right across the street from our house. Anyway, I was riding and tried to do a bike trick I'd seen on TV, got my right foot stuck in the front spokes and BAM! It flipped me over the handle bars and head first onto the asphalt parking lot. Mom said I came to the back door of our house, knocked on the kitchen door and passed out on the steps. I don't remember any of it except for putting my feet on the handlebars as the biking was moving . . . the rest is a blank spot until I woke up in the doctor's office.
3. A Saturday night, alone in the house watching for the first time,
Dracula. I think it was the scene where Dracula first gets to London and grabs a flower girl, pulls her behind a pillar and we hear her scream. To add to it, a wind outside the bay window where I was camped out watching TV started to howl. Scared me so much. Called mom at the bar. I told her how scared I was. I think I was crying. She said not to worry "
just go to bed and I'll be home in a while." All I could do was curl up in the big blanket I had on the floor and watch the rest of the movie until I just passed out. Next weekend, back in front of the set hoping to be scared out of my mind . . . again.
4. Seventeen years old waiting out the draft. Working in a woodshop making the bases for trophies. Worked a giant sander, smoothing out the edges and face of the base's surface. Lots of cuts on the hands when they got to close to the sand paper conveyer belt that was traveling at least a hundred miles an hour. Owned a motorcycle then. Use to go up late at night on this hill that over looked La Puente where I had a small apartment . . . not much bigger than the one I live in now. I'd go up there, layback on the motorcycle, drink beer, smoke cigarettes and watch the moon. Weirdest thing? I wrote a poem about it 47 years later not even knowing that I was writing about it! Here's the poem:
Sometimes Things Change
He loved the Moon once, way back in the day.
Lying on the warm hood of his beat up ’51,
he’d watch her all night long, watch her roll
lazily across the sticky summer sky.
The steady thud of cars passing by and over
the 9
th Street Bridge kept him company as
he chain smoked Lucky Strikes,
sipped at a cold quart of
Brew 102.
Just kicking back, staring up at her.
He wasn’t like them punk ass friends of his,
those young rowdy rednecks with spit
in their eyes and Saturday night
anxiously tugging at the crotch of their 401s
anytime a sweet young thing strolled by.
No, he wasn’t like them, nothing like them at all.
He was content to sit on the hood of his car
parked down by the dark shores of the South
Canadian, and watch in silence, just sitting there,
watching her endlessly roll.
Lately though, he noticed the Moon, his Moon,
her looks had started to fade, to go.
Too many large craters along her brow, these days.
Shadows cut deep gullies along the inside
of her tender Maria . . . transforming her,
bending her pale smile into a dark and dusty frown.
Her charm all but dried up, and his desire
to be with her . . . all of a sudden . . . gone.
Somewhat sad it is.
How time can kill a passion.
Once he smoked and drank and gawked at the Moon
with loving eyes, and now?
Now, he barely looks at her.
Woodie 1-14-12 (rewrites 1o-2o-14)
No comments:
Post a Comment