Power Outage

False Positive

 

Have you taken the test?

Did you pass or fail?

Is that it?

Or do you get a second opinion?

I sat in the classroom with all the others. I listened to the teacher and copied what was on the blackboard.

When the test was handed out, I failed.

Do you get a second chance?

Now there are medical test to see if you are sick.

What if you fail?

Do you go to a different doctor to get another opinion?

Life is just your opportunity to explore and make decisions on how you wish to live.

You meet someone at a party and seem to find a connection until she introduces you to her husband.

That was a false positive.

If the doctor gives you a certain time until the lights go out, do you follow the diagnosis?

What if that is a false positive?

She is going to have my baby.

That was a false positive.

You are going to get that raise.

That was a false positive.

You will stay married.

That was a false positive.

Your house will get you through retirement.

That was a false positive.

The warranty will last on your dishwasher.

That was a false positive.

Your roof will last forever.

That was a false positive.

You will live forever…

Home Sweet Home

 

From the time we could walk on two legs scouring the landscape for fruits and bugs to keep us alive, when the weather got threatening, we stood under a tree (for climbing had lost it’s thrill) or find a cave for shelter. Once we found fire our new home would get rather smoky without any windows.

As our family grew larger, we had to move to another neighborhood. With extended family members we formed tribes.

We migrated into parts unknown but others were living there. These were indigents who had already staked their claim on a plot of soil to raise their brew.

Sharing abundance was never our prime suite, so we cut down the timbers and diverted waters and even kidnapped a few until there was opposition to our aggression. Mono a mono.

With the knowledge of how to use tools, we built walls around our shelters. Was it to protect others from taking our stuff or to keep our stuff in? Ask the insurance agent.

As we left the rural farming culture to industrial society, cities were created. Buildings were built around factories to house the workers. With this congregation of former vagabonds came the need to fresh water, sanitation and markets. As the cities grew larger telephones were needed to communicate to one-another and then electricity came so we could plug in our televisions.

Still some still wanted to wander. The gypsies and nomads continued to search for new adventures that turned into a tourist industry.

For the rest to settle down to a good job with benefits and a retirement plan, a plot of land, a wife and two kids and a house with a garage was the ideal. Old farmland was divided up and sold in lots called suburbia and real estate agents loved the banks lending money.

If you didn’t have the money to purchase land there was plenty to go around. Cross the line and pitch a tent and you become a camper. Borders were disturbed as trespassing against vagrants.

Those with extra cash built multiple room buildings to loan the space to those who could pay the rent. Some were called apartments and some were called hotels, but all were for temporary occupancy and then vacancy.

Jump ahead when an approximate 30 million have become unemployed and unable to pay for food, health and rent.

The way the game is played, you have so many days to pay your rent until you get an eviction notice. With no options your ‘stuff’ will be put out on the street.

Now everyone else will be complaining about the homeless. The charities will do what they can with funds from those complaining and the governmental handouts from the taxpayers.

Like the migrants who wander across the border to produce our crops and pluck our fowl, if without the proper paperwork, will be placed in detention camps.

Some are called prisons. Some are called retention centers. Some are called ghettos.

Once a locality takes charge of people who have nothing, they take the responsibility to shelter, clothe, feed and bed. There are medical assistance and occupational assistance for those who are just looking to survive day-to-day.

For the others will be under bridges or on park benches.

Does anyone consider the empty rooms available during the day?

If the hotel isn’t booked to capacity for a convention there is a vacancy. When people go to the office their home is empty. Most homes have more rooms that are being occupied. Office buildings are empty during the evening hours.

Our species just want a place to keep warm and dry.

Twice 55

 

Don’t know if you remember this songbook, but I still have mine. I think it came from elementary school when we were learning the plastic flute.

 

There were no valves or reeds, just a single piece of black plastic and cover up holes to make different sounds. I think the first song was “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”.

From what I scribbled on the page, it was Mrs. Sandlers class (Room 208).

 

or room 103 at Junior high or perhaps room 209 Schwartz?

However I got it, this was my first music book. The copyright is 1957, which would have made me nine at the time, but this is the ‘revised’ edition.

This little book was kept in the Autoharp case and then in the organ’s bench. It was used at family gatherings to sing-a-longs of old time favorites and hymns.

Each song had the scored notes and words but no chords.

I had picked up the Autoharp and learned the songs then switched to guitar and picked out the chords I’d learned.

“The Brown Book” had the words to songs that soon became folk classics like “Go Tell It On The Mountain” and “The River is Wide” plus Christmas tunes that were popular for the season.

It is a classical reading with original words and music for songs that cannot be found on Google anymore like “Carry Me Back to Ole Virginny” “Old Black Joe”, “Old Zip Coon” and “Dixie”.

The cover has a sketch of the symbol on the Hitachi transistor radio we just got and the inside page has my father’s signature that I learned to trace and duplicate on school letters that needed a parents review.

Don’t know if it was purchased as a school supply with the flute or a gift for my mother to play and sing with? Someone might pick it up from the estate sale and not know any of these songs?

“Run fetch a pitcher gets the baby some beer”

Candyman

The Afterlife…

 

Thoughts of this day in the year of the pandemic

Seems like another day. After a few 2-hour naps and bizarre dreams the sun comes up again.

Blink as the screen flashes asking for a password before I can enter the digital world. Someone got shot, the president said something stupid (fact check), a wreck on the highway, some people are digging through rubble trying to find life, more outbreaks of virus and too many names to make t-shirts for protest. An ancient album has been remixed and released again and some teenager is missing. There are wild fires and locust and now bubonic plague. Some guy flew across the desert hanging on balloons and wonder what happened to the balloons. A boat full of cows sank, a cat toy looks like a fish hopping and the ‘Voice of Amerika’ and ‘the Stars and Strips’ are being canceled plus the diversity training (who needs that?). Some celebrity is walking on a beach in a bikini until; and all the trailers for the new movies look alike. The fantasy sports don’t release the tension of virtual schooling. Cities around the world are protesting and police are describing “situations”, “incidents”, “events”, “occurrences” or other terms for people who have been confined for months with no school, no work, no pay, no vacation, sweltering heat, no entertainment for distraction disturbed by repetitive use of too many weapons.

Wash off yesterdays sweat for the forecast today is cooler. Step outside and it is. Our star is bright but the air is palpable under a mask.

The morning ride has the usual participants of baby pushers, dog walkers, and runners going nowhere. As long as they smile at the cowboy and I don’t get crushed by the passing driver on their phone then the trip will be worth the effort.

Since everyday is a holiday, seems strange the asphalt is so crowded. I a wait my turn for safe passage in the gauntlet to arrive unharmed.

 Pulling up my handkerchief to protect me from the invisible enemy I grab my zip cart and scanner to venture into humanity that holds sustenance. Blueberries, V-8, popcorn and hydration but no special treats fill the basket, until a familiar voice breaks the mundane journey of the aisles. Always good to see a person who may be smiling but you never know when everyone is wearing a face diaper.

Surviving the journey, time to feed the hungry faces and revel in the silence, but still the digital world beckons.

There might be a new baby picture or a cute animal event or some quote that is supposes to sway a meaning that will change today. If the phone rings it will Amy who wants to check on my extended car warranty.

Some get frantic being quarantined without greeting friends at the local watering hole for a few laughs or lies while drowning in overpriced water, but that is not acceptable in this time.

For with all that life offers everyday, the focus is on how many and what can you do to avoid death. Wear a mask (it is almost time for Halloween), social distancing (no slow dancing) and wash you hands and face and toes and check behind your ears. What do you do when the person walks by with their mask on their chin?

Then go home and feed the flame, watching phone videos and listening to talking heads. Believe what you want until you turn off the devices for the night and dream sweet dreams.

So the question for today is: “How long will you be dead?”

After life is as difficult to comprehend as Pi. Eternity goes on forever, but what is forever?

We have some idea of how long we last on this planet from our history in gravestones. From our first gasp for air to our last exhaust are recorded, but what happens afterlife will be a mystery of fantasy and faith until…

Lunch Box

 

Back in the day when we were hiding under our desk to avoid the atomic bomb, when the bell rang for lunch you had two options. Every school had a cafeteria with plastic trays to get a plate of mashed potatoes, carrots, some sort of imitation meat (either brown or tan) covered in gravy and jello for dessert. Large black women served the grub and it was always cold. Don’t remember what the price for this but I rarely spent coins for a mid-day meal.

My mother stuffed a tin lunchbox with nutrition before I was leaving for school. It was always a surprise to open it up at the lunch table with my friends and devour the goodies.

The tin box was about 10” x 5” x 3” with a single latch to open what was to be the nourishment for the day that was prepared hours ago. This was a time before plastic zip bags so everything was wrapped in the new aluminum foil or saran wrap. If there was produce like an apple or banana, they were thrown away searching for the little bag of M&M’s. Sometimes we would trade sandwiches with others. Sometimes our lunch was just stolen and we left hungry.

The lunch box was decorated in familiar television figures. I think mine was Roy Rogers but it could have been Hopalong Cassidy or Mickey Mouse. It was a great marketing tool.

There was also a matching thermos. There was no space to put the thermos inside the lunch box so it was carried separately. It was small and carried about a cup of liquid and had a coke stopper that leaked.

It was a hassle to carry books and a lunch box and a thermos. Backpacks were not popular yet so the kids just lugged all the stuff from home or the bus to the classroom spilling lunch and messing up books. The alternative was going hungry.

Later I got a lunch box like the coal miners used with a space for the thermos in the lid. I still had to be hauled around and stored somewhere until the meal time bell.

By high school I’d dumped the lunch box. I probably ate at the cafeteria or didn’t because I had a breakfast and a dinner so lunch was not that important. Maybe that is why I wasn’t paying attention in school?

In college the vending machine fed me. I had too many art supplies to carry to include a lunch box.

The first years of work, I’d bring in a thermo for two cups of coffee made hours before. These were the new plastic screw tops that keep everything warm and neat. I even had a person who made leather belts for Civil War re-enactors to make me a holster to carry my thermos to free up my hands on the bus.

All this was becoming a hassle so I’d take a ‘coffee break’ at the coffee shop next door for a cream filled doughnut and a month old coffee in a Styrofoam cup.

When ‘Star Bucks’ came out with $5 cup I stopped.

Mister Penis

 

Hi! I’m a penis. I go by the name of Dick or Peter or Rod or Cock or many others. I’m the plumbing system that gets you a blue blanket when you are born.

When you are born it is not the color of your eyes or hair that defines what cigar your father hands out. Indoor or outdoor plumbing start designating your future from the moment you take a breath.

Toilet training doesn’t just include how to let go sitting down on the porcelain throne but also how to aim. I’m the little guy who is taught to hide from everyone.

Then puberty hits and I start to take control. As all those hormones are changing your voice and growing hair on your legs and armpits, I can’t be counted on to just hide away in my cup. Instead the wiggle of a walk or a naked lady on a calendar makes me stand at attention. Sometimes it is too much for me and I shoot off.

At the same time, the girls (those with the internal plumbing) are growing hair on their legs and armpits but also they are growing lumps on their chest. Size matters.

Whether I’m a wiener or a kielbasa, I like to be stroked. Friction turns off the rational brain as an internal pleasure opioid becomes addictive and must be repeated over-and-over again. Combine the internal plumbing and the population grows.

It is why we have two plumbing systems for procreation of the species.

Some blue blankets want to be pink blankets and some pink blankets want to be blue blankets and there are lots of variations of identify your personal preference, but without what I can do we will all become extinct.

The next time you see me, give a little rub and see if the genie comes out of the bottle.