Bumblebees and Blackberries

It all begins - trees come down. Big trees. Garry swings on a rope from three to tree sawing off limbs.    What a shame. Such big trees. They've been landmarks at the southern end of the lake for years. Five ashes had died from emerald ash borer infestation and would have had to come down anyway. Eight had occupied the building site. The big maple four foot across is lying on the driveway. Two men and a truck come tomorrow to haul away the appliances. Then the power company to relocate the power lines. A week from tomorrow demolition will begin. Next spring it will all be different. Hell its all different now. The carefully maintained lawn is all a mess. The big trees and their shade are gone. They are late today. They come when they get around to it. They're not on a clock - these tree men. They work when their are bills need to get paid. Otherwise, well depends on how they feel.  Don't you wish you could live like that. You learn their life stories - how many divorces, how many times in jail. Several of them are in a band at a local bar. Doug started yelling, God Damn it, the boys where too anxious to start clearing away the brush and were in the middle of the fallen tree. Wait till I'm finished here, it might roll on top of you. Doug had watched his father die when a gust of wind blew a tree in the wrong direction. You can't blame him being concerned.  I won't be here for the demolition. It's back on the road for me. I headed south for the winter. This is the best camping season - September to mid-November. The children are in school and the show-birds haven't begun their migration yet. It's cool and breezy today, but yesterday it was 95 and humid. A miserable day and the cabin air-conditioning had already been disconnected.

A Fourth tradition – the big tractor parade - little tractors, big parade – fifty restored antique machines – pucta, pucta, pucta – pudder through the park – purpa, purpa, purspa. Squat little Fords, Minneopolis-Molines with long engine blocks, Olivers painted bright green, red Internationals and Farmalls, and Orange Allis-Chalmers.  All lovingly restored and freshly painted. Putta, putta, putta. The big farmers waves and we all wave back.  They look big on their little tractors. Dwarfed by the behemoths that actually work the field. Iowa – rows of corn to become cheep E-85. Make sure your vehicle can use flex-fuel. Warning - Not gasoline.

You can’t have cutthroat competition where there is no one stopping people from literally cutting one another’s thoats – David Graeber – Debt, 2001 p303

A big man with a fat cigar

Hand rolled in Guatemala, no Paroddie

Name brand whiskey, neat

What would be the harm

If  I took to smoking again

Except that now you have to do it outdoors

And it took years to get the reek

            Out of the clothes that hang in the closet

The Surgeon General’s warning

Only refers its affect upon fetuses

And as I get older, what’s the difference

I am going to die of cancer anyway

            Given the environment

Get some Swisher Sweets or some White Owls

            And light up

But everyone else is smoking hand rolled cigars

            From Santa Domingo or Cuba

I will just stink up the place

            And be chased away

Let the big men smoke their big cigars

            The rest of us will screw

                        Their pooches

Private acts in public spaces – put your eyelashes on, on the bus. You are late. It was a rush getting out of the house. Hold the compact mirror in one hand and affix your eyelashes with the other while carrying on a conversation. This is the age of multitasking. Put on your lipstick while driving. Hopefully you can do it at the stoplight. Honk! Honk! Stick your arms in the air and apply deodorant. Yes, its a type of stick up.  Oops forgot to shave and I’ve got a client meeting in thirty minutes. Buzz, buzz.  You can shave and talk on your cell phone at the same time while you ride the elevator up. Keep an eye open for your bus at the stop. You become absent minded as you wait in line. Your panties are wedged in your butt crack. Casually reach back and dislodge them. The world is your boudoir. Do you have a problem\, mister? No! No, problem at all. Well then, keep your eyes to yourself.

An altered state of consciousness that’s what the cinema is. You come out with a warped sense of reality. I came out wanting to write my great opus - that which has been struggling inside me trying to find a voice. And this is all that I wrote down.

In this business how could you be so stupid? Couldn't you lie, swear, forswear, promise, and then perform or fail to perform, like everyone else? Couldn't you crawl on hands and knees like the others?  Denis Diderot - Rameau's Nephew

I was nine-tenths on my way to infinity

I was a long long way away

Too far away to be seen or to see

Far faraway but not yet far enough

To score a touchdown

Or even have have a chance

            At a field-goal

“Beach Volleyball” is she queen of dumb sports if you exclude the X games and mud or Jell-O wrestling. There are in fact too many to enumerate like linebackers pulling trucks (celebrity strongmen competitions in the off seasons). I do have high regards for the Bicycle Messenger Olympics.

And the ‘Fog City Blues’ played on a melodeon down the block. Someone had been playing it over and over, all night. It was now three AM and I was about to go mad and attack the blind tiger from which the infernal racket was coming, but I also knew that that was ‘Chicken John’s’ place and that such an act while heroic would be a little foolhardy. Instead I joined the crowd and pumped the musicians with cheep wine until they pucked their guts out and promptly passed out. I was relieved to learn that it was not the “Frog Town Uptown” that Cab Callower had ridden. And no one could answer my question as to wether frogs would sight read. Someone explained that it was a well know fact that frogs had better eyesight than hearing. And why was I so interested in the musical abilities of frogs anyway? I wanted to know why they were so fascinated with pianos, I explained. He said that he didn’t know that they were. I assured him that it is true. I went home and slept for the two remaining hours before dawn when I had to be at the stockyards again. I barely made enough to pay for rent and keep the melodeon players dead drunk, but I had managed to eek by and now six years later I think back and laugh.

Mommies drop by with little kids

                        In tow

To pick out birthday cakes

Mommy I like this one here

She thumbs through a book

            With pictures of cakes

            Under plasticine covers

Mommy, mommy, I want some of this

Hold on. Hold on, she tells him

            And she orders a cake

            To be baked

And the lady in white gives them

            Each a sugar cookie

One of the major difficulties Trillian experienced in her relationship with Zaphod was learning to distinguish between him pretending to be stupid just to get people off their guard, pretending to be stupid because he couldn't be bothered to think and wanted someone else to do it for him, pretending to be outrageously stupid to hide the fact that he actually didn't understand what was going on, and really being genuinely stupid.  Douglas Adams – The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy p82

We are given to favor those who favor us