No Excuse

CAPTION #1 "How sweet and tender is the sky."

CAPTION: "Tweet, Tweet!"

Mood adjustment! This is cute what AOL has done with my pictures?  But they've stolen my captions! I love my captions! I'll just have to start making them the first line of text.

Well, its true. You were not expecting me. Flight Canceled, Trip Canceled, ergo I'm Here.  If you are into math, that's three pieces of stuff. Flight gone, Trip gone, I'm not.  I bring this up 'cause we live in a culture made up of threes. And I tell my story telling students? Stick to three and you can't go wrong.

So here's a threesome to get into this upcoming short story. Forget who you are! Forget why you're here! Then remember!.

Let us take number one.   In his heyday Mort Sahl was the political satirist extraordinaire. On an album of his somewhere is this tale he tells of flying on Airforce One with President Nixon. There is, as Sahl tells it, quite a few media aboard when the big plane hits some serious turbulence. As he tells it, and I paraphrase, "Nixon comes out of his quarters dressed in Presidential Blue and foresnically argues, " Now I don't think we want to report this gentlemen. (I don't think there were any gentlewomen in the media then.) We wouldn't want the country worrying about the safety of THEIR PRESIDENT."

Sahl noted the President ALWAYS referred to himself in the third person. He must have had some wonderful political debates with the guy in the mirror.

So what's the point of point one? When I first wrote the upcoming short, short story, I wrote it in the third person.  I'm changing that for you.  It'll be me talking. And if I crash, so be it!. 

Well now let's get on to point two. What was it? Oh yeah, why are you here?

Let's face it. Henry David Thoreau was no John Muir. I doubt Thoreau would have lasted ten minutes on "Survivor." Yet we speak of him with such envioronmental reverance. The guy was miserable in the woods. AND that was no tent he was sleepin' in. But you know what? So what? And that's why I'm titling this little ditty "WALDEN NOW." He didn't need to know why hewas there. And I didn't need to know why I was here.

AND POINT THREE? And then REMEMBER. Let's face it. Nature is for the naturalists.

                              WALDEN NOW

                     by Paul Reinertson Circa 1984

     It is a fantasy and I am sitting in the middle of it. It's a Disney movie set, full of magnificent images and tales. I sit crouched at the edge of my porch, spreading my perception to take in a whole proscenium frame of life.

    Dusk falls sweetly over my vision as I slip quietly into a pleasant escape from the real world.

   I see countless shapes and shadows, hundreds of windows reflecting AND absorbing light, an artist's Nirvana.

   The vision is spiced with the smell of clover, pine, oak and freshness of air cleansed by a brisk but brief storm.

   It is the vision of a doll or a tree house sparking the same fantasies I wallowed in as a toddler. ( Yeah, I was into doll houses for a while.) ( A short while.)

   These sensations pull out the sweet peaceful memories of child controlled make believe. This can be where knights and princesses live.

    BUT I am in my OWN front yard. Shapes are so varied from Lilliputian to Majestic. I am overwhelmed with a peaceful life giving spirit. 

   I scratch an itch on my ankle, an ANT asking for it's territory back. I ponder the ANT's perspective. Busy little devil.

   My butt is getting sore  from my perch on concrete. A chill comes from the wind. The scene becomes familiar. Addresses appear, blinds close.

    Lights start dimming, a cloud of vehicular exhaust is heading my direction. I hear sirens a short distance away. A Boeing 727 overhead drowns out the wind brushed twigs.

   The Waldens next door are fighting again. A mosquito lands on my elbow and starts sucking blood. There is a cramp in my leg.

   Time to go have a beer. 

[APOLOGIES TO ANYBODY I MADE RECITE THIS IN CLASS.]

   [ I have to quit this apology business. Where's my confidence?]

    And so children that's the story of the three bears,

 Number one, forget who you are, number two forget why you are where you are, and then? YOU GET IN THE HOUSE RIGHT NOW BEFORE IT GETS DARK!

[Another thing I don't like about this new picture thing is I hadthe perfect snapshot for this short story, and AOL won't upload it.]