❧
My friend told me blogs blow. Another one bites the dust. I'm really writing for myself now, although I have a few subscribers still. Maybe everybody doesn't think blogs blow. Just them that has 'em. It doesn't matter. Time moves on.
I did something silly that I don't rightly understand. I went to breakfast at the cafe I used to be a regular at. The place was packed except for this preacher and his wife who proselytize me on occasion. had a table set for ten people to themselves. A regular group gathers at this table. I call them the Fox News crowd. They're the reason the Bible Belt is called the Bible Belt.
The preacher and his wife began stopping by the booth I usually sat in by myself. I go to places like this at off hours so I can take up a whole booth without it being a problem. I usually order and eat breakfast while I work the crossword puzzles in the puzzle books I buy at Barnes and Nobles. Since this "man of god" deliberately intrudes on my game, I don't feel bad about tormenting him by accusing him of worshiping graven images. He goes for it every time. Line, hook, and sinker.
We sat there a while blaspheming each other. Then, this woman we all knew came in. She fluttered around some claiming she was waiting for her daughter to join her. She looked different, but I didn't know why. Not to worry. She soon told me. She had fallen down and broke all her front teeth out, and broke arm and wrist bones.
I knew exactly what subject to broach with her to get her started. I started talking about the saying that "bored people are boring", and after I worked that angle for a couple of minutes I ventured that the boringest people I knew were people who still liked to dance the Shag.
Everybody there knew she was big on shag dancing. It's a dance that most of us there at the table had learned when we were young, dumb, and fulla cum. Most of those people are getting some age on them. Like this old woman. They sit around talking about how much they enjoy shag dancing as if they were still young and sexy.
This old woman is in her mid-seventies. Three or four years older than me. She liked the attention the stage I put her on got her. She started acting like I was my younger brother. I made a half-assed attempt to tell her she had us mixed up, but I could soon see that wouldn't register.
She didn't have a clue she was mistaking me for my brother even though I told her straight up. She acknowledged it in the moment, but in the next moment she was back to treating me as if I were "that boy who takes care of the rivers." That's what my brother does. He's one of the local river masters. They do go out in canoes and kayaks and clean the rivers.
Not me. As much time as I've spent out in the wild I never considered myself an outdoorsman. There's a possibility I've slept out in the woods and under the stars a lot more than most sportsmen. I wasn't out there to worship mother nature or hug trees. I didn't have any other place to go.
I've tried to describe some of the weird places I've ended up sleeping. Not so much any more. I think it's because many people don't have the kinds of experiences in life that might allow them to empathize with how little it took for a offbeat little nook to become a home.
❦
I do not attempt to tell the God's own truth here because I don't know what the truth is or hardly ever. I try to capture the drifting thoughts that randomly appear in my imagination for reasons I may not understand. I don't know if the content I capture with these words is true or false. The Comments settings are turned off to prevent me from having to defend what amounts to little more than fanciful, sometime crude speculation. Great moments in our lives never return.
