Smelt Fry

    The town of Goodridge was not looking its best on this Saturday, the 24th of April as my brother-in-law Pete, Steve Reynolds, and I pulled into town. It was the day of the Lions annual smelt fry, undoubtedly Goodridge's biggest day of the year. The smelt fry had been cancelled to past two years due to Covid so there was a lot of anticipation. But it had rained all day the previous day, and even more heavily this morning. One more kick in the teeth from the hard winter hardly passed.

   All our previous smelt fry jaunts had been on sunny days. We would arrive an hour or so before the smelt fry began at 4:00. The little town, pop. 132, would be packed with trucks, trailers, and people. We would hear the stereophonic chant of the simultaneous auctions that would have been going on since 9:00 a.m.

  The rummage sale was in an adjacent lot. This also had started in the morning, but there would still lots of stuff left for us to gawk at; Elvis memorabilia, homemade and insurance voiding barn heaters, kitchen implements no one uses anymore, 3 hp outboard motors, farm implements no one remembers how to operate anymore, etc. You could look in the pickup beds to see what people had already bought. It always looked like the same exact stuff no one had bought.

   In previous years, a line started forming at 3:30 alongside Lions Hall, a long quonset building with a square kitchen tacked on the far end. Some of the people in the line would be sipping beers they had stashed in their coats while chatting with their neighbors. The town has no resident police force and the usual norms are relaxed on this special day. 

   Once inside the building we would buy a meal ticket and accept plastic mug which was soon filled by a jolly woman with a pitcher of beer in each fist. We would inch our way along the wall toward the counter where green shirted Lions served up the deep fried smelt. Smelt are long and skinny, like super size sardines. The smelt itself gets lost in a thick coating of batter. The diner can further enhance his or her serving with dollops of bright yellow tartar sauce. 

   There are baked potatoes steaming in their tinfoil jackets, waiting to melt the frozen butter pats. There is sour cream as well to top it all off. Coleslaw provides the vegetable element and if that's not enough, there is soft bread, white and whole wheat. There's no dessert. That would be redundant here. There is milk for the kids and coffee for the designated drivers.

   That's a picture of years past. On this day the rain had quit around noon, but the day was still grey and cool when we arrived at three. We had passed mile after mile of flooded fields on our forty mile drive. This year there was no sign that the auction had taken place.  There were a few piles of rummage in the muddy lot. This stuff would soon be hauled back to the place it had come from. It would keep till next year.

   Some of Goodridge's streets are unpaved.  As we drove around town I found one that had formed a greasy surface atop its gravel base.  There were plenty of trucks to pull my little Corolla free should I bog down, but a rescue would involve muddy pants on my part.  I stayed on the blacktop after that.

  By 3:30 no line had started to form by the quonset. All the action seemed to be at the Municipal Liquor Store.  We decided to kill some time there. There was a small off-sale liquor store inside the door but most of the space was given over to the bar, booths, tables and chairs, a pool table, and a small bandstand where the band Eagle Creek was slowly setting up. They would not perform until 9:00, when the smelt fry was over.

   The Muni was packed with locals, old and young. The two women behind the bar were busy serving up bottles of light beer and alcohol-infused soft drinks.  No wine, sorry. Young boys raced motorcycles on the TV, but no one was watching.  Everyone seemed in good spirits. The weather was not bringing them down. Even those who disliked smelt were enjoying the company.

  At 4:00, we walked over to the quonset. There was still no line. It was mud all around the building with a big puddle in front of the door. The Lions need to make that area a public service project. We bought our tickets and within ten minutes we were filling our plates and finding seats at the long tables. The place was filling up. 

   There was a one man polka band to mellow out the scene. Two Lions circulated among the tables. One carried a thirty pound saddle of side pork (unsliced bacon) over his shoulder and the other sold raffle tickets.  Every few minutes the music would stop and a number would be called out. There would be a shout of joy, the music would resume,  and a new slab of bacon would soon be making the rounds.

   Even though Goodridge is a fair distance fromWannaska, we usually see someone we know, and sure enough, there was Putzy, the woman who used to own our favorite little café in Thief River Falls. She said she was doing well, but her husband had fallen off the roof a while back and was not doing so well. Her daughter was already eating and was giving us a who are these bozos look, because her mom kept standing with her back to her while talking to us.  "I paid for their meal," Putzy said. "I don't like smelt myself. I like standing to see if there's anyone I know." She had spent considerable time as a young woman in Goodridge. "People tell me the restaurant has changed since I sold it. They tell me I need to come back." That's not going to happen. She's busy with her catering business and taking her husband to his appointments. 

   A woman at our table had a green souvenir "Smelt Fry Goodridge 2022" coozie on her drink. She said they were giving them away at the Muni. I noticed new diners were looking for seats so we said goodbye to Putzy and headed for the Muni to get our souvenir coozies. They were fresh out. Pete said his wife Kathy back in Moorhead was meting a friend for supper. "She's probably cutting into a filet mignon right now," he said.. He mentioned a couple of other downsides of the smelt fry. "So you won't be coming next year?" I asked. "Oh no. I'll be here." 

   I had told Putzy I missed her potato dumplings at her old café. The new owners had dropped them from the menu. "I'll bring you some of mine to the smelt fry next year," she said. I smiled and told her spring is coming early in 2023 according to Old Joe's Almanac. 

Goodridge rummage in better days.
It shall return.

Sunday Squibs April 15-23

  

The superior chef knows to the grain how much salt not to add. 

It’s good to have many irons in the fire. Sure, some of them may get burned off. But if you have only one and it burns off, where are you then?

If you presume to go upstairs for tea with the Lord, you’ll maybe get scalded.

When you wake in the morning you feel like you just closed your eyes. 

When awake we’re anchored to Earth time. Asleep, we drift by on Heaven’s. 

The phone makers keep adding lenses to new phones so the rich flaunt it for awhile.

But this can only go as far. Why not just install a permanent price tag. 

You know for sure you’re dead when the trolls quit sniping at you. 

"Warming the planet is preventing the next ice age."

Motto of the Head in the Sand Club

Have I a thought I want to save 

I must in a book that thought engrave

Or else the wispy will-o-my-mind

Will leave that thought far, far behind 

To be a bookmark is a humble job. Unless it’s in the book of eternity. 

To do God’s will I must subdue my own will. Then I’ll be ready for the harder task of subduing what I think is God’s will. 

All of us praise the patience of Job

Though I’ll not be as noble as he

Lest old Nick points me out and says to the Lord

I bet I can make him curse Thee

Humor is so fluid 

It runs by like a river

If you would tell your joke in time

Your wit must be quicksilver 

I saw a guy 

With a log in his eye

I offered to remove it

No thanks said he

That need not be 

I’ve come to rather like it. 

Paper was invented to print money on it. 

Paper is folded to put money in it. 

God is like a feudal lord

Who says that he’ll protect us

He’ll even give us Heaven 

But check first the prospectus 

That one day in the pews will grow betimes to seven

Awareness of self is the bullet I bit

Oh my goodness today I have been such a shit

If I want to get better, if I want to improve 

Get out this rut and find a new groove

We rented a pig house from Airbnb 

‘Twas a tasty bacation indubitably 

Number of retired officers available to comment on military matters during a war: dime a dozen. Number of commentators with background knowledge of the crisis: precious few. 

Conservative tape measures eschew the metric scale and come with instructions in English only. They’ve made their peace however with Arabic numerals. 

Around the World in 312 Days

  

   In the summer of 1968, nine sailors left the British Isles in an attempt to make the first non-stop solo circumnavigation of the globe by sail and without assistance. If our friend and neighbor Jerry Solom had his boat Indian Summer ready back then, he might have joined the race.

   The Canadian-American Joshua Slocum was the first to circumnavigate the globe solo between 1895-98.  He took a leisurely three years with many stops along the way. In 1966 Francis Chichester made a solo circumnavigation, but he had stopped in Sydney and took a 30 day break. His actual sailing time 266 days.

   In 1968 the London Sunday Times sponsored a non-stop round-the-world race, hoping a British dolor would be the one to do it. Six of the nine competitors were British, two French, and one Italian. The Times realized it would be impossible to have all nine leave at the same time so they offered two prizes: one for the first to finish and a second for the boat with the fastest time. A racer could start anytime between June 1 and October 31.

   As you would expect, most of the competitors had lots of long-distance sailing experience, but two of them were duffers. Donald Crowhurst was a weekend sailor. He owned a small navigation equipment  company that was in financial trouble. He thought if he won the £5,000 prize ($150,000 in today's money), he could save his business. Chay Blyth had no sailing experience at all, though he had rowed across the Atlantic with a friend. When this Blyth was setting off, he had friends rig his boat for him then sail ahead of him in another boat so he could see how sailing was done. Unbelievable.

  The first three boats left the British Isles in June. The two men who had rowed across the Atlantic got off first. John Ridgeway, once out in the Atlantic, realized his 30' sloop was not up to the rigors of the race. Instead of turning east around the bulge of Africa, he kept going south and landed in Brazil.  His friend Chay Blyth meanwhile had figured out how to sail, but the fuel for his generator had gotten contaminated which meant no radio. He stopped at an island for repairs and clean fuel which disqualified him from the race. He decided to continue on, but his boat was suffering from the hard wear and he retired from the race in South Africa.

   Next off was Robin Knox-Johnson. He was a merchant marine officer who had taken time off to build a 32' wooden ketch in India, which he sailed to England mostly single-handed. His boat was so heavily loaded with canned food when he started the race that he was very slow. But the boat  was well built and he had only minor problems such as leaking seams which he could dive down and repair on calm days. 

   In August the two Frenchmen set off along with another Brit. One of the Frenchmen and the Brit had their boats damaged in an October storm and had to retire. The other Frenchman, Bernard Moitessier was an experienced ocean racer and had a fast boat. He kept going, gaining on the leader Knox-Johnson.

 The final three boars left in September and October. Nigel Tetley left in September in a 40' trimaran.  A triman has a narrow central hull and two outriggers. They're known for speed, but preform poorly in headwinds.  On October 31, the last permissible day to set off, the Italian and the weekend sailor Crowhurst left. Crowhurst also had a trimaran which he had built in a rush, mortgaging his business and the boat itself to pay expenses. 

   After two weeks, the Italian's ulcer started acting up and he retired from the race in Portugal. Crowhurst in his trimaran had left a lot of repair equipment behind in his rush to meet the deadline.

   By the end of November there were only four boats still in the race. Tetley and Crowhurst in their trimarans, the Frenchman Moitessier, and  Knox-Johnson in his 32' ketch. All we're having problems due the pounding they were taking, but except for Crowhurst, they were able to make repairs as they headed around the Cape of Good Hope and across the Southern Ocean toward Australia. Crowhurst in his trimaran remained in the North Atlantic.

   By December Crowhurst had realized his boat was not up to the conditions he would meet in the Southern Ocean, but he badly needed the prize money for his debts. He reported by radio that he was keeping up with the other boats even though he was still in the North Atlantic. He started a false log of his locations.

   The name Southern Ocean sounds balmy but those latitudes are known as the “roaring forties” and the “furious fifties” due the brutal storms that blow up from the Antarctic. 

   By February Moitessier had made it around Cape Horn at southern tip of South America.  The French government assumed he would be the winner and planned to escort him with a fleet of warships from England to France where he would be a national hero. But Moitessier was a mystic. He was put off by the celebrity stuff and instead of sailing to England continued east around the Cape of Good Hope to Tahiti.

  It now appeared Knox-Johnson would win the race, but Tetley in second would have the fastest time and would win the £5,000. His trimaran was in bad shape, but if he took it easy, he knew he could make it back to England. But where was Crowhurst? Crowhurst was hanging around off the coast of Argentina. He had not been around the world at all. His triman was badly in need of repairs, but he had left his supplies back in England.

   Crowhurst slipped into a village in Argentina and purchased supplies without arousing any publicity. He now reported by radio that he had rounded Cape Horn and was headed for England. This alarmed Tetley who started pushing his trimaran harder causing one of his outriggers to tear away. This tore a hole in the main hull. He was rescued before his boat sank.

   On this day in 1969 Knox-Johnson arrived in Falmouth after 312 days alone at sea. As the first one to complete the race he received the Golden Globe trophy. Since Crowhurst had left four months after Knox-Johnson, he would certainly win the cash prize for the fastest time. But Crowhurst was wishing he could just slink away unnoticed. He realized there would be a huge reception on at his arrival, but he knew his false log would not stand up to scrutiny.

  He let his boat drift at sea.  He began studying Einstein's Theory of Relativity. He wrote a long philosophical discourse. On July 1 he wrote a suicide note. When his boat was discovered, he was not aboard.

   So Knox-Johnson as the only finisher won the prize for fastest run as well. He donated the money to Crowhurst's family. Tetley, who's trimaran had sunk, was given a £1,000 consolation prize. The Golden Globe race was held again in 2018 on the fiftieth anniversary of the original. Entrants were limited to the types of boats and equipment used in the original race. Of the 18 entrants, only five finished. I know Jerry Solom would have finished if he had entered. And if it wasn't a solo race, WannaskaWriter and I would have volunteered as crew. Right WW?

Robin Knox-Johnson was knighted for sailing around the world.

   

   

         

Once You Know How, Everything is Easy

 

   In a cartoon I saw recently, a dad is feeding his little child in a high chair. The dad says, "When you get a little older I'd like you to help me with a couple of problems I have on my computer." There's some truth in that, but on the other hand, I read once about a teenager who was given a Sony Walkman and was told there were sixteen songs available on the device. He could only listen to half of them because he didn't know he had to flip the cassette over.

   The was no good reason for the teen to spend time figuring out the machine because he had an infinite number of songs available on his phone. If he took the time, he would eventually have figured out how to get the last eight songs, but the payoff was not there.

   It seems ridiculous when people say such and such a device or program is intuitive. A spear is intuitive. If you and your clan need to take down a wooly mammoth, a spear is just the thing. A bow and arrow is not intuitive. "You expect me to stop two tons of raging beast with this dinky thing? Give me a spear!"

   But then your son meets a girl from the bow and arrow clan, and yes, with a bit of practice that dinky thing will indeed do the job. Plus, the rate of being trampled by mammoths is much lower in her clan. The real reason kids are so much better than adults with new devices is that kids have all the time in the world. If they tap in the right sequence, they get lights, music, and pictures of new things to buy.

   Kids in their explorations learn all the ins and outs of a device. So many problems for adults come from little glitches in the program, not because the adult is stupid. There is always a workaround for every problem. Kids know the workaround. "How did you do that?" says grandpa. "Let me write that down."

   The last device I truly mastered was the camcorder.  We had three young kids at the time so recording their antics was the big payoff. I rented one from the video store at first. It weighed as much on my shoulder as the leg of a wolly mammoth. But it did what I wanted it to do.  I had already mastered our VCR player, because I loved movies. 

   The owner's manual for the camcorder was confusing, but I studied hard on it because I wanted to edit my movies.  Right after getting that down, TV remotes got confusing. You had to have two or three of them.  Who needs this grief just to watch some mindless pablum on the TV. I have books. Books are intuitive.

   Our collection of home videos of the kid's cute babbling and our trips with them around the country, sat in several boxes behind the TV. Number 2 son said if I bought an external hard drive, he would put all the tapes onto the drive then put them onto compact discs. Tapes were becoming obsolete and would eventually deteriorate. He took our collection of tapes plus a check for a hundred dollars and got to work. That was fifteen years ago, maybe twenty.

   Every so often I asked him how it was going. He said he had gotten all the tapes onto the hard drive, but had not yet transferred them onto CDs. He said it had been a blast watching his life pass before his eyes.  I didn't push him. He was busy in college. Then he had a job. Then he had a girlfriend. I would ask about the CDs occasionally but I still didn't push him. He got a family, then a house. Just recently he surprised me with a zip drive that contained all videos on the tapes. He had given me back the actual tapes long ago. They're  back behind the TV. The zip drive was plugged into a dongle which would allow me to make the old tapes appear magically on our TV. He told me how to do this but I didn't understand a word. Maybe I'll just fire up the old VCR and watch a tape, if I can get the remotes to talk to each other.

If zip drives could only talk.

Squibs: April 1-14

 The manic depressive is feeling great as he speeds up the mountain, until he discovers the mountain has moved on without him. 

If you use the royal We you’ll be ridden out of town on a rail. We prefer the editorial We in this country. 

Writers are paper actors. 

Fascination with celebrities, gossip, and trivia distract me from the elephant in the room who at any moment might sit in my chair before I can get out of it. 

Reading a history of a news event from ten years ago,  I realize how wrong I had gotten everything. 

Mr. Big went real big

And did not go home

He was oft on the road

So his wife loved a gnome

His kids did not know him

His dog bit his leg

He lost his dear home 

His hat lost its peg

I must quit the booze

I’ve run out of luck

I tried NA beer

OMG WTF?!

The four types of prayer: adoration, thanksgiving, petition, and contrition rotate through my soul like a bubblegum light atop a cop car. 

Our nature oscillates between the Godlike and the wormish. 

The novelist sets a trap in which he catches himself. By the end we must decide whether to drown him, shoot him, or let him go. 

We all of us can shine if seen in the proper light. 

I had a big deal

You don’t give a rip. 

I tell you my tale,

You give service lip. 

Should the tables be turned 

And you want my ten-hup 

I’ll be checking my voice mails

Or training my pup. 

Before starting on a journey, it’s good to consider what could go wrong. But the anxious person turns his path into a razor’s edge. 

The Catholic Church thought the Jews never really got Jesus. The Protestants think the same about the Catholics. 

When the artist reaches perfection his job will just begin. The postmark will be obvious if he starts to mail it in. 

The caveman throwing a log on his fire could never imagine turning up the heat with the warmth of his finger on an app. 

Our prejudices are like the lobster’s shell. They must be shucked off for growth to continue. 

New love blinds a couple to each other’s faults. For happiness to continue, the rose tinted glasses of toleration must be donned. 4/15/22

I must be the death of the party if I’m to wake up alive the next day. 

What the Bible offers as comfort, the devil converts to complacency. 4/15/22

Among languages Dutch is as close to English as among beings the chimp is close to us. In dealing with us, the Dutchman learns English while the chimp to get an orange copies our ways. 

On the spectrum of intoxicants, alcohol lies somewhere between the beatific vision and love of the self. 

The writer who uses slang will in the future appear archaic and finally incomprehensible. 

Look at poor Shakespeare. 

Small talk is like children,

Good in its place. 

If it never grows up 

That is a pity

If an object is not where you left it, view that not as an annoyance, but as the beginning of a voyage of discovery. 4/15/22

I wish that I knew everyone,

Then I would not be so feared. 

My friends think that I am amazing. 

Strangers find me just weird. 

Our minds are so small 

We can’t know all that is great. 

A good friend of God’s

May be someone we hate. * 4/15/22

I dislike those rogue April days that feel like the following winter. *

Some days I feel like a Potemkin village. But even Mr. P. had a hearth to boil his tea, a cupboard with a crust of bread, and a pallet to stretch his frame at night. 

Pissed-off was his MO

Anger was his art

He knew exactly who he was. 

His ball cap said “Old Fart”*

My memories I recall through emotion

Some people think that is insane

I’d rather be plucking on heartstrings 

While they rolodex through their brains

To throw in the kitchen sink is ok. 

I have one request though: leave out the bidet*

As we become adults, we build a castle to assert our authority. Let us not lock the child we were in the dungeon. *

Kings have jesters to remind them of their inner child. 

I’ve grown used to my demons. I must learn not to take offense when God evicts them.*

My investment report lies on the table unopened. It’s only money. But I’d pay a hefty fee for a spiritual report to see if my soul is up or down this quarter. 

Evening anxiety leads me to the ceiling of inebriety which leaves me next morning on the floor of sobriety. 

If I’m missing an ingredient for my recipe, I just keep watching YouTube videos till I find a suitable substitute. I have to be careful though. One time I wound up with a chocolate cookie salad. *

Memories are like paths through the wild. 

Coming back we must hack them anew. 

At first I am lost like a child,

Till I spot the bread crumb of a clue. *

To the go-getter, the future is a to-do list. To the procrastinator, the future is a doodle pad. *4/15/22

We don’t like to believe in the devil. 

Indeed, he is just 

The hollow place in our heart,

Fearing nothing but expulsion. *

You tell me a fact. 

I counter it from Wiki. 

Your buddy at Harvard upgrades it. 

My source at the U.N, refines it some more

We’re caught in the whirlwind of nuance. 

We don’t have to like everyone, but scripture says we do have to love them. Including the dead ones too, I wonder. Or only those living?

My weekly screen report wildly exaggerates the number of hours I spend on my phone. A better metric would be how many times a day I pick up the damn thing. *

Monstrous!

 

   I'm sorry to admit I didn't appreciate my parents when I was a kid.They asked me to do things that interfered with my leisure. I thought it was terrible that they locked me up in school all winter. That was bad enough, but they also extracted child labor from me in the good weather. One spring my father had me paint the picket fence alongside our house. This fence was about a half mile long.

   When I had finished the job he told me I had missed some spots, "holidays" he called them and said I had to go over the fence again. I rebelled when he wasn't around and downed tools. In geography class we had been studying about South America. Our teacher, Sister Eubestrabius, had been a missionary there and she said the best thing about South America was how nice the parents were to their children. 

   I had a little rowboat and decided I would row down the coast till I reached South America. At that point I'd look for a family to adopt me. It sounds ridiculous now, but it didn't look that far on the map in our geography book. I packed my sleeping bag and some food and a can opener and started rowing. 

   I headed to the lighthouse on Algaec Rock about a mile off the coast. As I approached the lighthouse I saw a figure waving to me. I rowed to a little pier and tied up my boat. The figure turned out to be Captain Stavropoulos. He told me his ship had been wrecked on the rock 60 years ago. He had been the cabin boy and was the only survivor. When the Coast Guard decided to build a lighthouse there, he stayed and helped. When the lighthouse was finished he was made its keeper.

   The captain asked if I would like to join him for lunch--tomato soup and saltines. As we ate, he said "Today is your lucky day, my boy." I asked why. "Today is the day the sea monster passes by these parts." He told me the monster had awakened from his bed in the sea a thousand years ago and discovered his wife was gone. The monster started swimming around the world looking for her, bellowing out "Bee-aw" as he went. It took him exactly a year to pass through all the world's oceans, and today was the day he would pass by here. “You can set your calendar by him,” the captain said.

   I decided to be on my way. I'd never get to South America if I stoped for every interesting festival and landmark along the way. But when we got outside, a thick fog had descended. "You better wait here till the fog lifts," the captain said. "Now you'll have a chance to hear the monster. We won't see him in this fog.”

   The foghorn had been going all this time. We walked up the spiral staircase inside the lighthouse. The captain said he could adjust the foghorn so it sounded just like the bellow of the monster. When I heard the sound, my feet went cold in my sneakers. "When the monster hears that, he'll think it's his wife. When he starts to get close, I'll turn off the foghorn and he'll go on his way."

   I was getting curious now. But as we waited I started to fall asleep, even with the loud "Bee-aw," sounding over and over. Then the captain shook me. "You hear that?" He said. I listened and heard a faint bee-aw in the distance. "That's him, my boy! It's your lucky day!" 

   The be-awing got louder and closer. It was more a Bee-aw, question mark, now. "Shouldn't you shut off the foghorn?" I asked.  He said, "If I wait a little longer we might get a look at him...Look! Look! There he is!" The monster looked like a huge snake. His head was as high as the lighthouse and his eyes were like searchlights. "BEE-AW! BEE-AW! BEE-AW! the monster bellowed as he sped towards us.

   The captain started turning dials and throwing switches in the control box, but the horn kept up its Bee-aws which was infuriating the monster. His eyes were turning different colors. Now the captain was hitting the control panel with a hammer and pulling wires out, but nothing stopped our horn. 

   Just as the monster reached the lighthouse, the captain and I started running down the stairs. Round and round we went. The lighthouse shook as the monster was slammed into it. Glass and metal fell past us to the floor, then granite blocks came crashing down. 

   When we got to the bottom, the captain threw open a trap door and said, Quick! Down here!" Then he closed the door over our heads. As he lit a lantern, we could hear granite blocks crashing above us while the monster BEE-AWed like crazy. After the crashing stopped we could hear Bee-aws, but they sounded sad now and then they stopped.

   We couldn't get the trap door open. "How about some saltines?" The captain asked. He had a little steam engine for making crackers. He poured flour and water in one end and the dough went through a little oven and came our baked. My job was to shake salt on them. As we ate saltines, the captain told me about his life. All the exciting parts were from before his ship was wrecked. The monster's visit was the high point of his year, besides the monthly visits from his wife who lived on shore.

   In the morning we heard sounds from above. Was the monster back? Soon the door opened and sunshine streamed in. It was the Coast Guard. The lighthouse was now a pile of granite, but my boat was ok. As the captain gave his report, I jumped in my boat and rowed home. When my father found me he didn't ask where I had been. He just handed me a paintbrush.

   About a year later I was out for a row. I had heard they built a new lighthouse so I rowed out to see it. A figure was waving to me, and when I landed, I saw it was my friend the captain. He invited me for lunch and as we ate he said, "It's your lucky day, my boy. This is the day the monster passes by these parts." I jumped up so quickly, tomato soup spilled all over my lap. I ran outside and jumped into the ocean to cool my scalded legs. Then I climbed into my boat and rowed home without saying goodby to the captain.  

   It turned out later I got quite good at painting: fences, exterior and interior trim, you name it. Stop by sometime and I'll show you my handiwork. We’ll have soup and crackers and I'll tell you the exciting parts of my life.

Once a Saint, Always a Saint

 

   A friend recently gave me what she thought was a Catholic money clip. The front of the clip has two medallions, one of Saint Christopher and the other of Our Lady of the Highway. This "money clip" brought me back to my childhood when most of the cars in Boston had either a statue of St Christopher on the dash or one of these clips on the windshield visor.

   St. Christopher was born in Canaan in the third century A.D. His birth name was Reprobus and he was 7.5 feet tall and had a fearsome face. He decided to serve the greatest king on earth. When he discovered this king feared the devil, he went to serve the devil. But he found the devil feared Christ so he went in search of Christ.

   A hermit converted Reprobus to Christianity and told him he could serve Christ by using his great size to carry people across a dangerous river nearby. One day a little child asked to be carried the across. As they crossed the river the child grew heavier and heavier and they almost didn't make it. Reprobus told the child it felt like he had been carrying the whole world. The child said "You were carrying the one who made the world," and disappeared.

   Reprobus changed his name to Christopher or "Christ bearer." He moved to an area where Christians were being persecuted. He comforted the Christians and refused to worship the local gods. The king tried to win him over with riches and by sending him two beautiful women. Christopher converted the women to Christianity. The king tried to kill him but could not. The king made many attempts, until beheading was finally successful.

   Christopher was soon made a saint. He is patron of ferrymen of course, as well archers, bachelors and bookbinders, and, most especially, travelers. Whenever a traveler set off on a long journey, he carried a St. Christopher medal if he was smart. Once the automobile caught on, it made sense to have St. Christopher as a passenger.

   But it all came crashing down one day when our teacher, Sister Eubestrabius, gathered us in a circle and whispered that St. Christopher was no longer a saint! There were gasps among my classmates. Sister said that smart men at the Vatican had told the pope that Saint Christopher was only a legend so he could no longer be a saint. I learned later that Christopher had not been de-sainted but only downgraded. The worst part of it was that his name would no longer appear on the Church Calendar of Saints on his former feast day of July 25. 

   Catholics were still encouraged to pray to St. Christopher for protection, but the damage was done. When Catholics bought new cars, they no longer ordered the St. Christopher package and visor clips like the one I have before me began their long journey to the thrift store.

Blessed iPhone

First Quarter Squibs

 

Like a fledgling on the edge of the nest, we wait for a push into the abyss. 

To get into the Kingdom of God, there’s a need that I do a one-eighty. 

If I only turn one degree at a time, my fear is I’ll get there too latey. 

When you do something right, let your back pats be longer. 

And when you screw up make your dope slaps less stronger. 

It's ok to use clichés as long as you turbo-charge them.

Had Van Gogh survived suicide and become rich and famous, he still would not have been happy. 

We marvel how contingent our existence is upon our parents meeting and mating. 

A moment’s silence now for all the people who don’t exist because our parents didn’t marry someone else. 

The old are scorned for resisting change. Take pity on them. They're still adjusting to all the previous changes in their lives. 

I love the lord Jesus, he fixed my esteem. 

To tear down yourself is to trash your own team. 

A great chef can make a fabulous meal out of celery stalks. Good ingredients just make his job easier. 

On man’s infantilization is another man’s wife. 

When I first retired I used to worry when I could no longer keep track of the day of the week. Then I understood what I had lost was the mind of a slave. 

The poet is the athlete of old age. 

The nine muses have a new sister: Interneta, the Muse of Idle Hours. 

The solution to your problem is locked behind a door. You and your therapist search for the key until you realize the door is standing open. 

Since slowness to heal has become now our option. 

The old folks and I will move forward with caution. 

Being ugly is no tragedy. 

Hollywood needs ugly mugs for its tragedies. 

I used to say man is descended from the worm, but I recently read that is false. We’re actually descended from a different long, squiggly creature from a neighboring phylum. 

When I grab too big a halo, it tends to slip over my eyes. 

If we had our hangovers before starting the glee, we’d all of us drink more strategically. 

Philosophy builds instructive ruins while the lover of knowledge herself is continuing the hunt far away. 

I feared that by using a GPS I’d miss the treasures I found when lost. But the goof-prone device could just as well be named Going Places Serendipitously. 

The people who vote for the other guy don’t personally wish you ill. They leave that to the people they elect. 

Banality of banalities 

All is banality. 

Bless the artist who can make it

Seem not so.

For Lent the lecher gives up eye candy. 

My consciousness runs not in a stream, but in a tidal pool; renewed each night in a sea of sleep. 

I left the cave of shadows and banged into an elephant’s leg. Blinded by the light, I thought it was a tree. When the tree walked away I tripped over a pile of…?!

I returned to the cave where at least they know how to do mashed potatoes. 

Some subjects are over my head. Even books about deeper things lose me in their undertow.

In Michelangelo’s Sistine chapel God sends a spark from His finger to Adam’s. In Darwin’s Chapel, God sends the spark to a bacterium. 

The algorithm asks does God exist?

If Y: continue to Mount Olympus. 

If N: run program. 

It took me billions of years to get here, so what’s my hurry now?

Your plane is leaving, sir. 

So what? They’re building another one in Seattle. 

Your ticket is non-refundable, sir. 

Clear the way!

There are many approaches to death. Best is the illness known as old age. 

I listen raptly when you describe your disease. When you tell me of another’s, my mind wanders. 

If I get one more first world problem, I’ll no longer be able to enjoy my white privilege. 

It’s storytelling, not story showing. The listener’s job is to provide the stage and props, the lighting and the greasepaint. 

There’s no profit in judging others. 

Assess them instead and send a bill. 

The week is a seven chambered Russian roulette. Which day you will die has not yet been set. 

No gossip in Heaven? 

The answer is no. 

If you wish to talk trash, 

come join me below. 

Flattery is cloying. Better the oatmeal of clear-eyed love.

The old religions lose adherents like leaves off autumnal trees. Islam is still in its high summer. 

The mega church provides economies of scalvation. 

The truly humble admit they deserve an ‘F’ in humility. 

Forethought is the nanny that prevents us from wandering into traffic. 

When I look into the past I wonder how people could have lived the way they did. 

If I could look into the future I would wonder why people have discarded all the good things of my era. 

First a pebble, then a stone, sometimes a boulder falls into the limpid pool of my awareness when I arise from  my meditation.

Couples can have none, or one, or two or three little trolls. 

But a fourth gets no congrats but lots of eye rolls. 

None to three  is your normal allotment of rug rats. 

One more gets you eye rolls instead of congrats. 

Some poems are felicitous; others are not so clear. 

Many make no sense. Is the fault in my ear?

A Convenience Store Checklist: The food and the drink make us fat. The fuels and the gas soil the air. The B.S. runs deep and costs just our time, while the lotto fends off our despair. 

The prayers from my rival church join with mine and ascend to heaven.

While our devilish deeds unite on the drive to perdition.

If no one was in a hurry, the scenic route would be as busy as the highway.

Plato did well to escape his cave of shadows. But his eyes never adjusted to the new world lit by a brighter fire. 

Protestantism’s innovation was to fly from earth to heaven, skipping the slog through purgatory. If your wings failed on the way though, there was no plan B. 

No male writer can know what it is, a woman to be. 

Though some have set forth a fair facsimile. 

At times our muscle memory will lapse. 

Then Humpty will fall; the bridge will collapse.

Downsizing frees up storage space, which was the initial cause of our hoarding. 

We furiously dust; exorcising the dust to which we shall one day return. 

The lengthening nights come too early;

The lengthening days come too late. 

If the world did not tilt and there wasn’t a moon,

Then the seas and the seasons could mate. 

Your idle curiosity keeps social media hopping. 

The stars in their movement through the heavens are beautiful. When they fall to earth and stay as yard lights, they become annoying. 

Every year summer finally defeats winter. But then winter makes a comeback and defeats summer. On and on it goes. So far the score is tied. 

Hablo español con acento de Google Translate.

When lost in the weeds, don’t make things worse by spraying herbicide. 

When lost in the weeds, look for a rabbit hole. 

Humility’s the hardest virtue to ride. 

As soon as you’re on, the horse turns to false pride. 

Animals watch the seasons  go round and think of the world as their friend. We look upon our decline and our fall and think of the grave as our end. 

In my youth, a hit in the NFL might put me out for a week. Today, it would put me out for good. 

On Mondays he’s unliked as a smart-ass; on Tuesday, unloved as a know-it-all. On Wednesdays he takes a break to prepare for the weekend. 

Theologians tell us to view the Universe as a mighty clockwork. While some of the cogs have opted not to participate, it still keeps remarkably good time. 

My guilt trips grow shorter the older I get. 

I once rode the bus. I now go by jet. 

Those infatuated with the stars would destroy the sun and moon to see better the galaxies. 

A blindfolded person can be convinced a bag of Romano cheese is vomit. But I doubt that would work the other way. Besides, where are you going to get a bag of vomit?

My little house sits on the edge of a cliff,

Though I built it, I thought, far inland.

As the waves beat below, this question occurs:

Has the rock that I used turned to sand?

Our dog lives as happily in the moment as we do in the universe. He knows not from where comes the rising sun, nor do we know who set off the Big Bang.

Should men be told to put on their big boy pants when they haven't first been toilet trained?

If you haven't yet figured out the truth about yourself, you're not likely to accept an outside opinion. 

Give wine to the introvert,

And the truth he’ll soon blurt.

Though often his veritas, 

Just proves he's an ass. 

The old book lover should say goodby to his books before the end of his story. 

Jesus healed the ills, forgave the sins of those he met. But he didn't turn them into saints.  He left them that as a yes/no option. 

We must fail before we succeed. Try not to practice failing in a life-and-death situation. 

At the concert I felt one with the world, till the band had to go. Then we all drifted home on our separate floes. 

Coffee is to my my morning brain as ether to a cold engine. 

The world is full of meaning. 

Our first mistake is thinking we know what that meaning is. 

The only thing I can really know is my own thoughts, which so quickly turn to vapor. 

If I tell a joke, you’re welcome to tell one of your own. But I’ll be more impressed if you’re able to pick up the thread of conversation I so rudely broke. 

I can handle too much flattery. It’s dead silence that gets me. 

To read Beowulf straight off,

You must be a scholar. 

And Chaucer is gotten by few. 

Far into the future will the language we holler,

Be called then Middle English Part Two?

“I love rabbit holes,” he said with a shrug. 

“It comes with the turf when your first name is Bugs.” 

If al-Qaeda, Isis, et al. made targeted donations in Congress, would my decapitation be green lighted?

Do the Inuit really have 40 words for snow? Or is it like us with our many kinds of meat? 

Slushy snow, sleety snow, snow that gets tracked into the igloo. 

Which tooth of yours has the upper jaw?

Savory or sweet. 

You can’t buy love, but you can buy a dog , which is the same thing. 

 A café can’t last when one night it is great and the next it serves up a burnt flan. 

Mediocre’s the goal, stay between the white lines;

You’ll find that’s your best business plan. 

The shy person stands behind a mirror of ice awaiting a warm face to find it.