A Satchel Full o Poetry - Happy New Year - Stories by Tom Hanks - And the Studebaker Parked on our Street - Mom and Tom Thumb - View from the Bathroom Window

Here's all the folks I sent postcards to in the last couple days. Nelson Yeardley, Iris, Sarah Lynn, The Creamers, Max and Grace. As you know, my intimate readers, I never buy postcards. They arrive by the dozens for free. Boys Town I nearly donated to today and Sierra Club, but I stopped myself just in time. Like a drunkard, tipping the Jack Daniels into my mouth but failing to complete the action.



Was very excited to wake up this morning and start working on my short story, finally titled Moon River, I think. Make that Moon Over Miami.

BREAKING NEWS! Just went upstairs to ready the TV for a guitar concert. The end of a film was still on.

A couple were out in the rain and passionately kissing. I mean passionate!

The song Moon River was playing and the kissers were Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard. Breakfast at Tiffany's, of course.

I'll tell you something. I could never stand the film and always shut it off halfway. The end was great!

Last night watched a fab concert w Lady Gaga, 38, and Tony Bennett, 87. Twas a repeat. My story would mirror their concert somehow.

     So many costume changes. Oh, if only you could see what I'm wearing now, Dear Reader.

As I said when I sat down in our Writers' Group, I'm wearing my smoking jacket. My polka-dot pajama tops. Should I request I wear this to my wake? My body will be cold, so this will warm me up, Mr Rigor Mortis.

In the cold weather I wear my beret around the house.

Jerry Van Dyke just died as reported on FB.  A nice round of applause for Jerry!!!

       Friendly guy, great teeth. Wanted everyone to like him. A quick note from Wiki, and yes I did pay my yearly donation of five bucks.


HAPPY NEW YEAR

Join me in toasting
the New Year with a
cuppa hot, make
that fiery hot
Starbucks, a
gift from Rem
at my birthday
party.

Why, you may ask
is this cat wearing
a hat? Freezing
in here, tho the
sun steals unabashed
into the living room.

Ah, I hear gurgling
in the kitchen. You
mustn't allow coffee
to burn.

So many things we've
learned in 2017. The
fidelity of neighbors,
the devastation of
hurricanes, the value
of a lingering kiss,
and the patience
required for yet
another swinging
mobile.

The treks to the
compost heap to
sleuth out who
ate what. The
tiny track marks
of the birds
are a show of
God's kindness
to mankind.

Did I tell you
I added cinnamon
to the coffee? Just
a pinch. Toasting
y'all for a happy
healthy prosperous
and surprising
New Year, 2018.

***

Pssst!  Don't spread this around but I don't care much for coffee anymore. 



AND THE STUDEBAKER PARKED ON OUR STREET

- Lines from the audio book "Killers of
  the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders
  and the Beginning of the F B I "

Aside: I check out many audio books at a time b/c most of em are no good to listen to when I make a meal. The above book is one such book. The cavalcade of characters was too much to keep track of.


"Studebaker" and I remember when he
pulled up to our row-home at Caster and
Cottman, in Philadelphia

A huge green two-tone car, fueled by
gasoline and six-packs. We gave the
old man the living room, while we
slept on a lumpy mattress, made love,
and argued, When is he gonna leave?

He loved to talk. Over breakfast, he
plied me with tales about the Jews.
Never been one in the family in
Crockett, Texas.

Josephus, a Jewish historian, wrote
about Jewish history, Jewish history,
repeated The Old Man, as the beer began
affecting his brain.

It was worse than that. He had alcoholic
dementia, I learned. Rolling Rock Beer,
a local variety was stacked up against
the kitchen wall like a shelf of books.

At night, he'd come whistling home from
the local bar.

I'd never met a drunk before. What was I?
All of 24?

He kissed my hand before he left. His third
wife Nedra was waiting for him at home. The
sad thing was that after he died - there were
a dozen of us at his funeral somewhere in
Arkansas - baby Sarah was with us - Nedra
died a year later.

And the jalopy? The Studebaker? Ripped
apart, I'd imagine, the way he did
the family, and sold for a pittance
to the local junk man. 

***

STORIES BY TOM HANKS

Nah, I said to Emilie
the intern at my library
it got bad reviews. Don't
want it.

Pushed it back to her.
Never mind, I said.
The critics are often
wrong.

At home I plopped it
onto the husband's side
of the bed or the cat's
side, whatever you please

And began to read. The
second story Christmas
Eve 1953 may win the
Pushcart Prize

And maybe I'll take
Honorary Mention for
the most books -
twenty or thirty -
being read at one
time.

You think you're the
only one that does
this, right? All over
the world in languages
including Cajun, Inuit
and Roumanian, ten-
thousand are reading
right now in their
huts, shacks, wigwams
or whatnots, just like me.

***

Be not afraid of the winter. Stay indoors if you're a fraidy cat like me.

However, I did drive to Beatriz's today being scared as hell but having no problem.

 Wall of birthday cards

View out the bathroom window. Hold on, a poem goes with this.

I had to fetch it from FB.

VIEW FROM THE BATHROOM WINDOW

They came straight at me
the tiny whirly helicopters
that made me laugh
Nature thinks of everything
to perpetuate its species
A thousand maple trees
growing on my backyard lawn
my yellow house in the
middle of a forest?

Let's drink a cuppa tea
and have a good think.
I know. I know. When next
I look out, there's the
Gingerbread House and
Hansel and Gretel
on the outside nibbling
the delicious frosting.

Stop right there, I shout,
putting down my tea. Go to
your left, my darlings, and
there you will find another
abobe, a safe abode, a
yellow house where I shall
have milk and cookies
waiting for thee.

*** 

WHAT IF GEORGE SCHULER
WERE TONY BENNETT

Don't look in the mirror
bad hair day
Eeeek! I can
always wear a hat
and do.

"I don't know you" I wrote
Julian Amin after he
emailed me twice with an
urgency not seen since
the Downton Abbey folks
fought in the trenches.

Seems like someone with
my surname was mentioned
in a will. I need only
respond with some vital
information. Bra size,
favorite dessert, and
sport you last played.
but I jest, Beau.

What a show! I clapped,
I laughed, I rode my
stationary bike, and
blew my nose with what
once was a lovely summer
blouse, and felt the breezes
of spring, though it was four
degrees only three feet from
my clapboard home.

My late friend George Schuler
could have been Tony Bennett
but it never came to pass. George and the
high-strung performer Lady Gaga
danced across the stage. Bennett
was 87 at the time. My George
was 91 when he was felled by
a fast-moving illness, he
couldn't outdance.

I have danced across the living room
this morning, then peered out the
front door seeing if the world was
still there.

***

Chant from Haggadah:  Why is this soup not like any other? Hint: It's creamy, healthy, thick, filled with onions, garlic, mushrooms, Udon nodules, half a cinnamon stick removed after 40 minutes, plus one whole egg for protein.

***

Scuse me, if you please. Gonna work on Moon Over Miami a bit before burying myself, not at Wounded Knee, but under my colorful bedspread/quilt I bought at K-Mart and a white feather comforter with pink nail polish on it to indicate which end is up. It's still impossible to tell. As I mentioned once, putting on these covers is like sailing a ship and hoisting up the sails in hurricane winds.

Special !  ONLY FOR READERS of this blog.

My Kmart has closed. In its prime, it was a great store. Bought springtime plants there plus soil. A  $40 gorgeous ceramic bird bath but made the mistake - mea culpa - of leaving it outside in the winter.

The top cracked.

Read these hilarious comments about the newly closed K Mart.

In closing...watched the great guitar player Selwyn Birchwood and his band and could not stop dancing.

Then another great guitarist came on!

Remember, tomro, to write a poem about Ruth Roth from high school.