Laughing with my Dad

Posted on January 26, 2007 by Jim

I love music.  It’s ironic…  now that I have a car with a good radio, I have decided to drive in silence during my 55 minute journey from Woodbury to Norwalk and back.

My day is filled with sound of one type or another.  Yes, music; but mostly it’s the spoken word.  Incessant sound.  So my drive in quiet solitude has become a cherished part of my daily routine.  Thoughts come and go, ideas drift in… old stories, old conversations.  Or they can be new… looking for a better way to describe a young Chianti I had just tried.  I think of things that make me sad… and I think of things that make me happy.

And last night I thought of something that made me laugh… laugh hysterically… which is perfectly OK.  Laughing out loud in an outrageous fashion, when driving alone… is like singing out loud alone (off key).  Who cares?  Not that I have ever worried too much about laughing out loud outrageously in public (which will be in evidence later in this story).

This is how it starts…

In February of 1962 my Father took my Mother on a trip around-the-world.  Their journey began in Hawaii, proceeded to Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Manila, Thailand, India, Israel, Greece, Spain… and maybe London & Paris, too.  Official photography for the trip was a shared responsibility.  The “simple camera” was relatively new and the entire trip was shot in slides (favorite shots would be turned into photos later).

My Father also brought a new camera along… perhaps as back-up.  The instamatic may have been shared; but this one was his.  It was a Minolta or Minox… I forget which; but the key here was its small size.  It was smaller than a six inch ruler & no wider than a stout cigar.  At the time it was the smallest commercial camera by miles.  It looked like something 007 would use.  The camera had a small tan leather case and a “watch chain” that you could clip to a belt loop and slip the camera into your pants’ pocket.

Dad was proud of that camera.  Although he never impressed me as being a “shutter bug.” 

If the camera was small… the film size was ridiculously small.  Micro film really.  But he wasn’t shooting secret files purloined from the Kremlin… he was photographing the Taj Mahal.  And since a slide is nothing more than a positive image of a negative… the size of Dad’s slides looked like a computer chip.  So when his film was developed, we had to get a special projector, which had this magnifying attachment so that you could see an image from a decent distance away.

Mom’s slides had no such difficulty… and I guess I must have seen her slides a half dozen times before we had the right equipment for Dad’s…

We finally get to view Dad’s slides.  I’m looking at shot after shot… Dad explaining this or that.  And then we get to a staged photo of Mom and Dad standing before a Thai Temple in Bangkok.  Dad must have asked a passer-by to take the shot… Mom is in a light coloured sleeveless top and a skirt.  She is standing at an angle facing Dad.  Her feet are positioned in that classic pose… one foot slightly in front of the other, and pointed slightly out.  She has a beautiful smile.

My Father is wearing an English lisle polo shirt, a silk foulard tied around his neck, light grey tropical worsted slacks and cordovan penny loafers.  He is facing slightly toward my Mother, and the empty leather camera case (having given the camera to the passer-by for the shot), attached by the strap to his belt loop, was hanging about crotch level.

My Dad takes a look at the slide and lets out a serious chuckle, “Jesus, it’s looks like I have my pecker on a leash.”

Then I crack out a laugh at this comment.  My trouble is… I can’t stop laughing.  And then of course Dad picks up his laughter pace, too.   And there the two of us were unable to call a halt to the laughing.  Mom left the room saying if she stayed she was going to pee in her pants.

That’s the way it was with me and my Dad.  Boy could we laugh… and poor Mom would have to scurry from the room lest she pee in her pants.

I thought about this story a couple of years ago… don’t ask me exactly how I arrived at the recollection.  We were in Taos for Fan and Chipp’s Wedding… after the service we were gathered on the patio of this wonderful place trading stories… enjoying a drink, taking in the view… And I am sure that Paul and I got to talking and it was probably mentioned that it would have been great for Mom and Dad to have been there, too…

I guess that’s how I connected to the “pecker on a leash”.  And geeze, if I laughed hard with my Dad… I laughed harder with Paul.  Because I had a much better understanding of the improbability.  And the more I thought about it… the harder I laughed.  The clear image of that photograph came back in highest detail… Mom and Dad, although casually dressed, dressed impeccably… standing in front of a magnificent Holy Shrine… and it looked like my father’s penis is hanging out of his fly, and it was on a wire tether.  This wasn’t like some smart assed teenager giving the finger in a sneaky way or something.  This was my Father!!  How improbable is this? 

Eventually all my laughing gets the attention of others on the patio.  And I mean I am laughing! Pictures were taken.  It looks like I might be in pain, or maybe just threw up.  Paul’s expression is one of bemused toleration.  If anybody asks me about the shot, I’m going to tell them that Paul had just farted (or peed in his pants) and I was creating a ruckus to cover his embarrassment.  Yeah, I think that’s a good bluff.

Last night, the silence of my drive was broken… like I had hit a pocket of turbulence on Route 136.  The picture of my Father and Mother standing in front of that Temple in Thailand came back to me… And I laughed once again… harder and harder.  This time it was about the caption.  I mean sure, it’s a funny shot; but maybe only funny if you knew what to look for.  And even if you knew what to look for, the hysterical part was the “caption”… the name Dad had coined off-the-cuff… pecker on a leash. 

My Father was a master at the Title.

So… I had a good laugh with my Dad last night.  Pecker on a Leash?  Isn’t that a Pub in London?

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Vegetables thru the Ages

Posted on January 22, 2007 by Jim

We have all heard it. “You’re staying at the table ’til you finish your veggies!”  Or, “I see that brussel sprout behind the mashed potato, young lady!” Or, if you were lucky you were subjected to greater artifice and creativity… “Look, why don’t you pretend that the broccoli is a tree from the Triassic, and that you are a Brontosaurus eating 100lbs of nourishing greens to get strength to beat Tyrannosaurus Rex.”

“Apatosaurus.”

“What?”

“Apatosaurus, Mom.  They changed the name of Brontosaurus to Apatosaurus.  Othniel Marsh put the wrong head on the mounted fossil skeleton in the Yale Peabody Museum and when they finally discovered the mistake they had to change the name.  And it’s the Jurassic and not the Triassic… and Tyrannosaurs didn’t arrive ’til the Cretaceous.  And besides, nobody beat Rex.”

“Go to your room.”

So much for demonstrating superior knowledge at the dinner table.

Enjoying vegetables is unnatural… we all know it.  It’s something we learn to do as adults, like driving cars, filling out tax forms & suppressing a fart in an elevator.

Look at our ancestors.  Vegetables on their diet?  I don’t think so.  We killed our food… and before it was food, it walked, flew or swam.  We rounded out a meal with nuts and fruit.  That’s it.  And that’s the way it stayed until we invented wine 7000 years ago.  Our chemical make-up was meant to process meat and not greens!  Vegetables?  The animals we killed ate the vegetables!  That’s how we got our vegetables!  We let them eat it first!!

When Louis and Mary Leakey made their discovery of earliest human life in Olduvai Gorge, fossil evidence showed that Homo Erectus dined on mammoth 2 million years ago.  No evidence of vegetables… but at the same level in the walls of the gorge — tangerine seeds, apple cores & peach pit remains have been found.  A cap from a G.I. issue canteen, also found, has been discounted as a historical anomaly.

But let’s not kid ourselves.  Vegetables have been around a long time, too.  And they are here to stay… even for us “hunter-gatherers” (by the by, I do my hunting and gathering at Costco). Culinary vegetables can come from any of the major plant parts: root, stem, leaf, flower, fruit or seed. Here is a short list of the other food.

Tomato.  Originally domesticated by the Maori of New Zealand.  The great war leader Pomare was succeeded by the “peace chief” Heke, who burned all weapons of war, turning spears into tomato staves.  From then on, aggressive behavior was confined to throwing tomatoes at each other.  This worked for hundreds of years, until the competing Titore tribe found the way to extract the highly toxic blood of the blister beetle, which would then be spread on a tomato.  A hit from a tomato meant sure death.  The Maoris were virtually wiped out.  It is why today, no one from New Zealand would even think of looking at a tomato, let alone eating one.

Jicama.  Central American Natives would take this taproot and mash it up and ferment it to create a highly intoxicating hallucinogenic pudding.  It would be consumed on festival days, the celebrations sometimes lasting a week or more.  When hardened, the pudding becomes a very reliable building paste.

Eggplant.  Known as “aubergine” in much of the world, it was produced solely for the attractive colour, feminine form and beauty.  Princess Eugenie of France loved to look at decorative arrangements of eggplants and made sure there were eggplants in every room of the Palace in Versailles.  Royal Dye-masters were put to the task of replicating the unique colouring for the Empress’ cashmere shawls and flocked wallpapering.

Asparagus, Carrots, Celery & Pickled Cucumbers.  These vegetables were put on a restricted list in Victorian England.  Markets throughout the Empire had an “adults only” section that was curtained off from the central display area.  The above mentioned vegetables (referred to, in polite society, as “unmentionables”), along with hot dogs, bananas, crullers and baguettes were discreetly kept out of view and only sold in private… And would never be consumed in public… in polite society.

Radicchio.  Pliny the Elder wrote extensively of radicchio’s medicinal properties in his Naturalos Historia.  Radicchio was good for treating heart ailments, swollen joints, hearing loss, insomnia, erectile dysfunction & athletes foot.  Some of the side effects could be hair loss, sustained headaches, uncontrolled sweating, painful gas & permanent loose bowel movement.

West Indian Gherkin. This small relation to the cucumber was appreciated by the Caribe Tribe for its fertility properties.  When ripe the gherkin was first peeled, then cut in vertical strips, dipped in the urine of the sacred goat, grilled on a stick, and then while still hot placed on the forehead of newlywed brides on their wedding evening.

Gefilte Fish.  Long associated with Jewish people, who would take great satisfaction in knowing that there was in fact no fish called a gefilte fish.  The word “gefilte” is derived from a German word that meant “stuffed”.  Some assume that this “delicacy” is a combination of three different fish: pike, white and carp… chopped and formed into a large irregularly shaped “fish meatball.”  This is not the case.  The origin of this dish goes back to France circa 1000 AD, where it was known as faux poisson. It was in fact a combination of chopped parsnip, rutabaga and horseradish.  Crusaders traveling from France brought this dish with them as they made their way across Europe to rescue Jerusalem from the Infidel.  In Central and Eastern Europe the name evolved into gefilte.  The fact that this is a vegetable dish has been an culinary insider’s  joke for centuries.

Strawberry Twizzlers (re-classification from USDA pending).  Finally!  A vegetable that us hunter-gatherers can finally enjoy with gusto!  And you nay-sayers who raise an eyebrow because the maker of Twizzlers is a wholly owned subsidiary of Haliburton with ties to the present Administration… well, T for tough!  I’ll have another helping of Twizzlers please.

Posted in Ministry of Humor | Leave a comment

He Played the Game

Posted on January 10, 2007 by Jim

Although it was the Etruscans who first introduced gladiatorial games to the civilized world, it would be the Romans who would give greatest expression to this form of entertainment.

The first record of gladiator combat took place in 264 BCE.  It was staged by Decimus Junius Brutus Scaeva to honor the death of his father.

For the next 450 years gladiators would occupy the central stage of Roman cultrual entertainment.  The contestants were recruited from the ranks of slaves, criminals, conquered peoples and Legionnaires… the warriors of Rome.  They were pitted against each other in pairs, in combinations and against animals.  While injury and death were part and parcel of this activity, it was not the design to kill off prized property.

That is what gladiators were… property.  Property of wealthy free citizens of Rome.  Gladiators would learn their craft in carefully organized and funded schools… learning their skills from retired gladiators.  They would be pampered… well fed, groomed… treated to wine and women. 

And on the day they entered the dusty ground of the Coliseum they would do so to a chorus of cheers.  Admired for their physical form, admired for their bravery… shouts and cheers to feed the Roman lust for violence.

Death was sometimes the end… and even to the survivors they would retreat to receive the best medical attention of the day, to prepare for future contests.

The staged combat in present day arenas and coliseums in the form of football bears striking similarities to gladiatorial combat of legend and lore.

Hard plastic and pad have replaced metal shield and helmet… and while death is ultimately rare, injury is not.  And for 16 Sundays in the year, we gather as the Free Citizens of Rome did, to cheer and become rabid in our lust for violence.

Perhaps we should expect the behavior of the contestants to mirror that of the citizenry.  Here is a Free Citizen, fueled by copious amounts of beer, stripped to the waist in 25 degree weather, body painted half in red and half in blue, a clown wig in electric colours as well, shouting profanities & if necessary, to punctuate his opinion, hurling a container of his brew in the direction of an official of the game, or at an opposing player…

So no surprise when a player carries on in a similar vein.  Mini demonstrations staged to satisfy the lust of the Free Citizens.

But this is not Rome.  Or so I tell my self.  And the excesses of behavior, on and off the field, are just that… excesses.  And if you are going to show something on television, and then replay it… and then replay it again.  What are you going to choose?  Randy Moss scoring a TD and then standing in the endzone, pretending to drop his pants to moon the Greenbay hometown crowd?  Or perhaps we’ll replay Tiki Barber scoring a TD, picking himself off the turf and handing the ball to the Official?  What makes better entertainment?

How many times on ESPN do you think they replayed Moss’ moon?  How many times do you think they replayed Barber giving the ball back to the Official?

Maybe that’s why Tiki Barber’s retirement from the game of football will warrant little more than a blink from an audience that applauds glitz and glitter… an audience that puts showmanship above sportsmanship.

For those who don’t know me… I am a Colts fan of old… stretching back to the “Johnny U” days in Baltimore.  But I have enjoyed following the good Giants teams under Parcells.  Harry Carson and John Mendenhall were my favorites… and who could deny Lawrence Taylor’s excellence?

But there are few players who I have enjoyed watching today more than Tiki Barber. Against my Colts he “touched” the ball 23 times: 18 times rushing the ball for 110 yds (a fat 6.1 average) and 5 receptions for another 61 yards.  He finished fourth in the league in rushing.  This year’s rushing champion and this year’s MVP, LaDainian Tomlinson (being hailed as a combination Michael Jordan/Wayne Gretsky/Tiger Woods) is an outstanding back but his numbers this year weren’t as good as Tiki Barber’s last year.

I am really sorry to see Tiki retire.  He is such a good back.  I loved watching him play.  I loved his expression… he loved to compete… he was proud to compete.  And if he took a good lick, he was quick to praise his adversary with a pat on the helmet.  He played the sport pure.  No chippiness.  He respected the sport, he respected his teammates, he respected his adversaries… he gave his all on every down.

He played the game the way it was meant to be played. 

The Giants came up short against the Eagles in their bid to advance further in the play-offs.  On Tiki’s way back to the locker room for the last time, helmet in hand, baseball cap on his clean shaven head, Brian Dawkins, All-Pro Defensive Back for the Eagles sought him out, shook his hand and paid him the ultimate acknowledgement of honor and respect, “You were a warrior.”

 

 

 

 

HE PLAYED THE GAME

 

Although it was the Etruscans who first introduced gladiatorial games to the civilized world, it would be the Romans who would give greatest expression to this form of entertainment.

 

The first record of gladiator combat took place in 264 BCE.  It was staged by Decimus Junius Brutus Scaeva to honor the death of his father.

 

For the next 450 years gladiators would occupy the central stage of Roman cultrual entertainment.  The contestants were recruited from the ranks of slaves, criminals, conquered peoples and Legionnaires… the warriors of Rome.  They were pitted against each other in pairs, in combinations and against animals.  While injury and death were part and parcel of this activity, it was not the design to kill off prized property.

 

That is what gladiators were… property.  Property of wealthy free citizens of Rome.  Gladiators would learn their craft in carefully organized and funded schools… learning their skills from retired gladiators.  They would be pampered… well fed, groomed… treated to wine and women. 

 

And on the day they entered the dusty ground of the Coliseum they would do so to a chorus of cheers.  Admired for their physical form, admired for their bravery… shouts and cheers to feed the Roman lust for violence.

 

Death was sometimes the end… and even to the survivors they would retreat to receive the best medical attention of the day, to prepare for future contests.

 

The staged combat in present day arenas and coliseums in the form of football bears striking similarities to gladiatorial combat of legend and lore.

 

Hard plastic and pad have replaced metal shield and helmet… and while death is ultimately rare, injury is not.  And for 16 Sundays in the year, we gather as the Free Citizens of Rome did, to cheer and become rabid in our lust for violence.

 

Perhaps we should expect the behavior of the contestants to mirror that of the citizenry.  Here is a Free Citizen, fueled by copious amounts of beer, stripped to the waist in 25 degree weather, body painted half in red and half in blue, a clown wig in electric colours as well, shouting profanities & if necessary, to punctuate his opinion, hurling a container of his brew in the direction of an official of the game, or at an opposing player…

 

So no surprise when a player carries on in a similar vein.  Mini demonstrations staged to satisfy the lust of the Free Citizens.

 

But this is not Rome.  Or so I tell my self.  And the excesses of behavior, on and off the field, are just that… excesses.  And if you are going to show something on television, and then replay it… and then replay it again.  What are you going to choose?  Randy Moss scoring a TD and then standing in the endzone, pretending to drop his pants to moon the Greenbay hometown crowd?  Or perhaps we’ll replay Tiki Barber scoring a TD, picking himself off the turf and handing the ball to the Official?  What makes better entertainment?

 

How many times on ESPN do you think they replayed Moss’ moon?  How many times do you think they replayed Barber giving the ball back to the Official?

 

Maybe that’s why Tiki Barber’s retirement from the game of football will warrant little more than a blink from an audience that applauds glitz and glitter… an audience that puts showmanship above sportsmanship.

 

For those who know me… I am a Colts fan of old… stretching back to the “Johnny U” days in Baltimore.  But I have enjoyed following the good Giants teams under Parcells.  Harry Carson and John Mendenhall were my favorites… and who could deny Lawrence Taylor’s excellence?

 

But there are few players who I have enjoyed watching today more than Tiki Barber. Against my Colts he “touched” the ball 23 times: 18 times rushing the ball for 110 yds (a fat 6.1 average) and 5 receptions for another 61 yards.  He finished fourth in the league in rushing.  This year’s rushing champion and this year’s MVP, LaDainian Tomlinson (being hailed as a combination Michael Jordan/Wayne Gretsky/Tiger Woods) is an outstanding back but his numbers this year weren’t as good as Tiki Barber’s last year.

 

I am really sorry to see Tiki retire.  He is such a good back.  I loved watching him play.  I loved his expression… he loved to compete… he was proud to compete.  And if he took a good lick, he was quick to praise his adversary with a pat on the helmet.  He played the sport pure.  No chippiness.  He respected the sport, he respected his teammates, he respected his adversaries… he gave his all on every down.

 

He played the game the way it was meant to be played. 

 

The Giants came up short against the Eagles in their bid to advance further in the play-offs.  On Tiki’s way back to the locker room for the last time, helmet in hand, baseball cap on his clean shaven head, Brian Dawkins, All-Pro Defensive Back for the Eagles sought him out, shook his hand and paid him the ultimate acknowledgement of honor and respect, “You were a warrior.”

Posted in Life | Leave a comment

A Stare For Rachel

Posted on January 6, 2007 by Jim

“Pass”

“Pass”

“Pass”

A few seconds waiting for a bid in Bridge can turn into an eternity.  Sherman (that was my Dad) asked, “Well?”

No answer.  Sherman waits for another few seconds while Rachel re-arranges her hand for the third time since the bidding opened.  “Rachel?  Are you going to bid this evening?”

Rachel re-arranges the cards one more time.  This time putting spades on the far left of her hand.  “Can I have a review of the bidding?”

Sherman puts his cards down. “I passed.  Jake passed.  Estelle passed.  And now it’s to you.”

“Don’t rush me Sherman.  You’re rushing me.  You probably have bad cards and you’re rushing me.”  Rachel shifts her spades to the far right of hand.  “OK.  Let’s see.  I bid a small spade…”

Sherman folds his hand.  “Rachel, you can’t do that.  That’s cheating.  You can’t say a ‘small spade’.  You can say a spade… just a spade… or two spades if you want to, or you can pass.  But you can’t say a small spade… because you have just told Jake that you only have four spades, or that you have a weak point count.  That’s cheating.”

Rachel’s expression showed hurt.  The accusation stung.  Almost as much as if someone said that they didn’t like her soup.

Sherman recognized that his comment pinched.  “OK… look, this is going no where… let’s just finish the bidding.  I pass.”  He was reconciled to having bad cards for the fifth hand in a row.

And that’s pretty much how it went when my Aunt Rachel and Uncle Jake came over our house to play bridge.  Thursday night was bridge night.  They would set up in our small breakfast room that was adjacent to the kitchen and begin play at 8:00PM… you could set your clock to when the first cards were dealt.

They would stop at 9:15PM for coffee and… The “and” was usually a Russian coffee cake, or a bundt cake, or occasionally a pie.  Aunt Rachel always brought the “and” I would have been long to bed before the break in the card game. I would only have discovered the precise flavour of the “and” the next morning.  Whatever was left from the night before would be put in my school lunch, and if I was lucky there would be a slice or two remaining when I got home in the afternoon. 

Even if my Aunt Rachel was slow to bid, or did so in an underhanded way (I would learn more about her technique when I picked up Bridge during my undergraduate days)… even if half the time playing cards were spent in argument… or in discussion as my Father would say… discussing about the wrong card that Rachel would play or some such… all that not withstanding, Rachel was one helluva baker & one helluva cook.

My interest in their card play or their sometime heated discussions, was a sidebar to what really mattered.  It was Rachel’s “and” that she baked with care & love.  {And of additional note… Rachel’s chicken soup was considered a marvel in our extended family.}

Rachel and Jake would leave sometime after 10:00PM.  The actual time would depend on whether their spirited discussion put a damper on further play after “coffee and“ service.  Regardless, it would never be a real late night, Rachel would have to get up early the next day to drive to Bridgeport… so my Aunt and Uncle would return to their Woodbridge home well before the “witching hour.”

Uncle Jake was a Certified Public Accountant in New Haven.  And according to my Father, a good one.  Aunt Rachel taught 8th Grade Science in Bridgeport.

When I was a kid I didn’t particularly like teachers… my dislike wasn’t directed against teachers as people; but rather against what they did and where they worked.  You see, I just didn’t like school.  Other than gym, school was a horrid and wretched experience for me.

Having a teacher in your family was almost like having an undertaker in your family.  Both useful professions… but do you really want them around in your personal life? 

I loved my Aunt Rachel; but when I was in the 8th grade she made me nervous.  It wasn’t like she taught in my school or anything; but I lived in constant anxiety that she might ask me what photosynthesis was.

I can’t say when I grew out of my discomfort with Rachel being a teacher.  I would like to say that it was when I entered the 9th grade.  But I am sure that it was a few years later.  Let me assure you that at no time did my discomfort intrude on my appreciation of her Russian coffee cake, or her insanely divine chicken soup.

Years later… well after Uncle Jake passed on, I would truly begin to understand her considerable force.  On one visit to her condo in Boca, we got to talking about the “old days.”

“Rachel… you had any number of opportunities to take positions in other school districts… to teach kids that would be moving on to high school, college and beyond.  You could have taught in Woodbridge or Greenwich forGodsakes!  And been better paid for it to boot!!  Why the hell did you remain in that cesspool of a city, Bridgeport?  You could have done so much more for kids who cared!”

Rachel stirred her tea.  Something she still called a “glassela tea” even though it was served in Spode china.  She cut a slice of her famous Russian coffee cake for me.  She asked after my kids, and without skipping a beat, launched into a mini-dance around the kitchen to her rendition of “Suzie Q” at the mention of my daughter Suzy… she hopped and skipped, hummed and strutted… and swept crumbs from the table in smooth motions that defied choreography.

I shook my head in amazement, “Rachel… I don’t know how you do it!”

I could only imagine her “putting on the Ritz” in her class room, or down the school halls… a “Mick Jagger” who knew about photosynthesis.

“Rachel… your talents were wasted in Bridgeport.  You could have been teaching in a school where the kids mattered.”

That stopped Rachel mid-dance.

“Jimmy.  My kids mattered.  They counted.  They were important.  The system may have sucked.  The parents may have sucked and not cared.  But the kids?  The kids?  We have to try the best for the kids.  We owe it to the kids.  All the kids.  The fancy shmancy kids in New Canaan have tons of people to do the best by them.  But who is going to go to bat for the kids in the barrio?  No.  Knock me down in the street. It’s OK, I can take it.  I’ll stand up, dust myself off… I was going to try and make a difference.  And to succeed once?  Yes, it would have been enough.”

The phone rang.  Rachel went into the den to take the call.  I put my tea cup and plate in the sink and stopped by the fridge to look at the pictures that coated the door.  Grandkids galore… Max, Zoey, Lucas & Joshua… each photo noted with date and location.  And there tucked in a nook of the “gallery” was a piece of lined stationary with neatly and carefully lettered poem.  A poem for Rachel.

A Stare

A stare has a lot of significance

A stare is from feeling at that instant

A stare comes from love while you admire something

A stare comes from joy and happiness like a sting

 

A stare means a lot, at least for me it does

A stare is special, it’s that extra little shove

A stare is like praise in my eyes

A stare is like longing to let go of all the lies

 

A stare is wishing I had your beautiful eyes

A stare comes from wishing my eyes could reflect the skies

A stare comes from wishing I had your comical and loving smile

A stare comes from wishing I wasn’t afraid to lose myself

Even if it meant that I would not be in style

 

A stare comes from wishing I could make people laugh the way you do

A stare comes from wishing my smile had the beauty to help people through

A stare comes from bewilderment because I smile every time you do

A stare comes from embarrassment because I truly do love you

 

A stare comes from the fact that every time you’re happy so am I

A stare comes from the fact that I know that in you I could always confide

A stare comes from the fact that I know I always have a friend to come to at school

A stare comes from the fact that you don’t let me act a fool

 

You wanted to know why I stare at you so much

And, it’s because I admire you and such

You’re like a friend I have known for years

I guess staring at you is what takes away my fears

— Thank you, Francis

The paper had corners that were turned and wrinkled.  This poem, written years before, had been transferred from fridge to fridge… and to my Aunt Rachel I could see that it was worth more than a chest full of gold.

I don’t think I could have loved Rachel more.  When she returned to the kitchen, I had a catch in my throat.  Sure.  What could I say?

“So… Rachel.  That day… did you really bid a small spade?”

Posted in Stories & Brief Tales | Leave a comment