YARD WORK

My back yard looks great right now. I just spent several hours cleaning up and mowing the verdurous space. By the first of next week it’ll look like crap again. One of the main reasons that the splendid appearance is so fleeting is that my basic crop is weed related. If I had a nice base of Rye grasses or Kentucky Blue Fescues then I might get more mileage out of my mowing and raking and such. But my yard leans to the Crabgrass, Chickweed and Dandelion varieties of flora. They say that one man’s weed is another man’s dinner, but I’m pretty sure that was Ewell Gibbons who said that and he’s dead so I’m not eating any old Dandelion soup.

I’ve been using my brand new Craftsman push mower with the big wheels on the back. It’s a side discharge bagger type or a mulcher, whichever you choose. I choose mulcher. It’s much easier that way and those little sticks you miss when you’re raking get chopped up into sawdust pretty nicely. Plus it’s good for the lawn, or so I’ve heard. Up until last fall I had two working mowers; a self propelled job that worked pretty well most of the time and a cheap little push mower that I used for the tight spots. The self propelled was really nice until the drive mechanism broke. Then it was like pushing my pickup truck around with the emergency brake set. I had that mower fixed a couple of times. The drive mechanism would only break when I hit some unseen immovable object or tried to drag it backwards when it was in a forward gear position. They really should make those things with automatic transmissions. It was a good mower, a gift from our youngest daughter, and I miss it.

But as I was saying, the grass looks pretty good. It doesn’t have any of those fancy diamond pattern mowing marks that some guys put into their thick green lawns. Some of those yards look like the outfields at major league ball parks. The only pattern in my yard is the decreasing circle as I get closer to the cooler holding my Yeungling Amber Lager. But I don’t think of the few beverages that I might consume during the completion of my chores as real “drinking”. It’s more of a hydration thing actually. We all need to stay hydrated, right? When I go on my daily walk I see people, usually those in expensive sneakers and spandex clothes, carrying their little water bottles. They have them at hand even if they’re just taking the kids to the playground. The kids on the playground even have water bottles, so there must be some sort of government advisory out about keeping hydrated. I do my part for hydration and for the brewing industry at the same time.

If we’re still here in this house next year I’m thinking of paving a good part of the lawn. They call that “hardscaping” as opposed to landscaping. Some rocks and a bunch of paving stones, maybe a few bricks can make all the difference in the world. And what takes hours of work with garden tools can be reduced to a few minutes with a garden hose and a broom. The grandkids would like it. They already love to toss rocks out onto the lawn in the higher grass patches where I can easily find them with the lawn mower blade. This way they can toss the rocks and I can say they are helping me to “re-hardscape” the yard. Good news all around.

Well, I’m going over to my brother’s place to look at a toilet resetting job. I’m not going to do the job I’m just going to look at it and maybe talk about it a little. It’s free help that I’m happy to give. I just wish I could get some free help on this yard work stuff because I really do hate it, even if it does have the advantage of being a perfect opportunity for hydration, even in the morning.

Have a fine day.

WEATHER, FLU AND 100 DAYS

This morning I had to take my pick-up truck into the shop for some work and diagnostics. Diagnostics was once a word reserved for hospitals and now it applies to computer and other electronics repair and cars and trucks. Hook up the little plug deals on whatever is being diagnosed and a computer checks things out and next thing you know you have a new fuel pump, some new government mandated pollution filters and a bill for a thousand bucks. Modern life sure is grand. But I digress, as usual.

While I was in the waiting room at the car place I took a peek at the morning news show that was playing very loudly and distracting me from my “Field and Stream” magazine article about the top one hundred fishing lures of all time. It seems that this morning the talking heads were extremely excited about the weather, swine flu and Mr. Obama’s first hundred days. All three of those subjects seemed to be of equal importance if we were to rate them on how animated and thrilled the reporters were that delivered the news. A report on some new treatment for acne got a slightly higher excitement level but that may have been a commercial designed to look like a news report so I have to take away a few points for that.

The weather was exciting because it’s pretty hot out. At least two people in New York City died as a direct result of being confined to their non air conditioned apartments. One person was ninety two and the other was eighty nine. The landlords are being charged as co-conspirators with God (the weather maker) as the evil killers of those two unfortunate folks. Well I made that part up, but nowadays one can’t be too sure about anything. The reporter talking about the weather did say that things were going to cool down some soon. And he seemed a little disappointed. But he also got happier when he talked about some possible serious storms attached to a big cold front that might possibly be moving through the Midwest some time later in the week. It seems that greater the potential for disaster the happier the reporter.

The swine flu thing is a pretty big deal. A bunch of people in Mexico have died from the illness and it’s spreading all around the world. The UN is involved now which is probably making the virus very happy. Any time a UN agency, in this case the World Health Organization, gets involved in a problem you can bet that by the time the meetings set up to discuss the issue and some solutions, are finished with no definite outcome, the crisis will have passed. From what I could discern from the gleeful reporter this could be the next big pandemic. Millions could die. Whole cities could disappear in a massive wave of fever, vomiting and diarrhea. The US might, just might, have enough vaccine for about one sixth of the population. But only the neediest will get the shot. Neediness will be determined by how a person voted in the last presidential election and level of campaign contributions. Well maybe not. Actually the vaccine would be distributed first to the weakest and sickest in the population. That way there won’t be any thinning of the welfare and public assistance rolls. Am I sounding too cynical here? Yes, and I hate myself for that.

Moving on, the next big news story was about how Mr. Obama’s first one hundred days as president has been rated. The reporter and reporterette covering this story took on a smiling and reverent tone as they assured the whole country that every thing is going just fine and dandy. They showed pictures of the Great One and his wife just smiling like empty headed movie stars in many, many settings. There were a few photos of Our Leader with a serious frown when he was addressing groups of CEOs and banking executives. I think I caught a glimpse of bags of cash being pushed under the tables in those shots but I might have been wrong. Overall, according to those news people, the new president has outstanding ratings, is accomplishing great and wondrous things and has set the nation on the road to recovery. And if wasn’t for a paltry few million ignorant redneck folks who don’t really matter, who have publicly disagreed with him on most every issue, he would have the support of the whole population. These reporting people were obviously intelligent and enlightened beings who are totally behind the new president and his gang. I meant to say his administration. By the way have you noticed some of the total morons that Obama has appointed to all the new “czar” positions? Take a few minutes to check out those people and their records and public statements. It’s some amazing stuff.

Anyway, I was rescued from any further news by the mechanic guy who brought me my bad news and my bill. But his news was better than the crap I was getting from that TV on the wall.

Have a fine day.

LOGGERS LAMENT: possible folk song lyrics

I’ve worked in these woods for thirty five years
First as a helper trying to stay safe and clear,
Then working a saw and sometimes an axe
And now running a crew of rugged old Jacks.

We’re stewards of forests but some disagree
They say that we’re reckless and wasting the trees.
They’d like to see the logging all end
Save all trees and send us round the bend.

When we do our job we do it all right
We pick and we choose and we never lose sight
Of the fact that tomorrow we still need to work
So we take just what we need and plant more in the dirt.

In the old days they stripped the trees from the hills
They fed all the wood into the kilns
The charcoal then went up to the mines
Pig iron was made and sent down the line.

After those years the hillsides were bare
Rivers were ruined and fires burned everywhere
Then the mines were closed up their towns faded away
The forests came back slowly to what we have today.

So all you do-gooders in your ivory towers
In all of your clubs who hold all the power
We’ve learned from the past we’ve seen the mistakes
Leave us alone we just want a fair shake.

Let us go out and cut down some trees
For every one cut we’ll plant another three
We’ll make a living and stay here and grow
Along with the forest that we’ve come to know.

A FUNNY THING

It’s hard to write funny stuff. Lately my muse has been sending me to the poetry corner and that isn’t usually funny material. It may be pitiful and ridiculous but it’s rarely funny. Although I have written some songs that I thought were somewhat funny. And some folks consider song lyrics as poetry. But today I thought I’d sit here and write something funny. I’ve been sitting here for about two hours now and I’ve typed a mess of stuff and erased all of it.

Nothing funny has happened lately. I got a mild case of conjunctivitis which wasn’t too funny, although some red-headed people think it is. Conjunctivitis is the proper name for “pink-eye”. I guess “pink-eye” is kind of a funny name. And if you ever saw how much trouble I have putting eye drops into my eyes you’d laugh out loud. For some reason I have an aversion to anything going into my eyes. So I get the dropper all lined up and my eye opened all wide and then splat, I hit the bridge of my nose or my eyebrow. It’s embarrassing. When my dear wife is home she does the job for me. But she tends to over medicate so that one drop turns into an eyebath. Oh well, the disease is receding and will be gone in a couple of days. Did you know that the germs that cause “pink-eye” are the same ones that cause some diseases of the sexually transmittable variety? It’s true. It wasn’t anything fun that got me infected.

Since I’ve been contagious I’ve kept to the house most of the time so I don’t have any observations of a humorous nature about human nature. And since I’m kind of irritated about this disease I’ve avoided reading the news and getting even more irritated. I did notice that our president has been busy overseas working on peace through appeasement. I guess he’s back in the States now giving speeches about the economy and ecology. It’s good having such a smart and experienced guy at the helm of the ship of state. But I notice that every time he gives an economic speech the stock market takes a dive. Those capitalists on Wall Street must not have much faith in Mr. Obama. They’ve realized that every proposal he makes threatens productive jobs and attacks personal income with more taxation so they’re understandably nervous.

There were a bunch of those Anti-Taxation Tea Party events around the country on the 15th of April. I didn’t go to one but I was with them in spirit. Some of them were protesting higher taxes and other government policy. Some of the events were geared more towards support of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Still others turned into anti-Obama rallies. They all earned the wrath of a lot of liberal folks like Janine Garofolo so they must have been doing something right. I doubt if they had much impact on policy but they might have a small impact on the awareness of our legislators to the fact that there are people around not totally sold on the liberal agenda that is being imposed on us all.

The company I used to work for is now out of business and in closing up they had to make all their employee savings and pension accounts square up so that they wouldn’t be liable for lawsuits or federal prosecution. Consequently I got notice that I’m getting a little bit of money from the 2007 contributions. It’s not much but any source of funds when you’re a poor old retired guy is welcome. All we need to do is fill out a bunch of paperwork, get our signatures notarized and then wait a couple of months for the actual check. Oh well, like I said, it’s all welcome.

Tonight my wife and I are going to go look at for a new lawn mower for the house here in Dover. Both of my old ones gave up at the end of last year and are beyond worthwhile repair. The grass is pretty deep in some spots, almost knee high, so I’ve stalled long enough. I’d like to invest in one of those Jetson like devices that automatically does the whole job while I sit on a lawn chair and drink a cold beverage. Barring that it would be nice to get a good riding mower that I could steer with one hand and hold the cold beverage in the other. But I don’t think I can find a rider for under two hundred bucks. So I guess I’ll settle for a decent push mower that my wife can handle. You never know when a shoulder injury might re-occur and I’d hate to see her work too hard.

Sorry this wasn’t so funny. I’m going to go write some depressing poems now and try to recharge my humor producing brain cells. Until then…

Have a fine day.

THE REAL DEAL: a poem

for charles bukowski

I imagined Chinaski reading
This one. This one about
Living straight and
Having a family
And working and
Retiring. All the time
While living that life
Writing stories and poems
That go into a big book
That only a few people read and
Even fewer appreciate.
And maybe I had some sort
Of existential crisis somewhere
Along the way. And maybe
I still search for that truth
(capital T) and way to
Enlightenment whatever that
Is. But mostly I just look at things
And see how they fit in the world
Or don’t fit. And I write down
What I see and try to get
The essence right.
I imagine Chinaski reading
This one and saying it’s
The real deal. And he knew
What that was, didn’t he?

WHEN THE MAPLE TURNED, 2004: a poem

When the maple turned
The air wasn’t cold.
Colors say Fall and
The Season is walking
Through the calendar
With steady steps.
Time to go home is
Closer now.
Time to make ready
For the cold and dark.
We’re all waiting for a
New light, even while
This one dims.
The seasons walk through
The calendar with steady steps.
Some call it a circle
A wheel, turning and
Returning, no end.
But it’s a path
Twisting and branching
With unexpected suddenness
And an ending just ahead
Invisible.

HOMELESS: a poem

I got up and
Did the bathroom bit
And had breakfast
And looked out the window
At the spring.

Then I went to the
Library and looked at
The homeless guys sleeping there
Some pretending to read
Through closed eyes
Bodies slouched in disjointed
Repose.

They’re not all homeless
Some live in shelters
And group homes
Sad and insane
Lives torn by
Alcohol and unhappiness
Drugs and despair.

Some of the homeless guys
Even have learned to use
The library computers and spend
Time looking at jobs they
Will never apply for
And look at
The encyclopedic knowledge
That they never will use.

I try to talk with some
Of them but the conversations
Wander into places I
Don’t want to go or else
They become me listening to
Anger over real and
Imagined injustice.

I take my books home
And read for awhile and
Then eat a light lunch
And take a
Nap and plan for later
Today.