NATE & HIS PIT CREW

Ruth & young Nate went out driving one day,

With Lilly in back (she had little to say),

But Lilly saw the car would obey Ruth’s commands,

So maybe, just maybe, she wouldn’t need hands,

To drive doggie style, she’d be stoked if she could,

Show Nate her dog posse, down in West Hollywood!

But Nate had his own plans to drive that new car,

And he knew lily’s driving couldn’t get them too far,

But with him they would go get some ice cream and cake,

He’d obey every stop sign, and make no mistake.

He would drive like a pro, and show Ruth how it’s done,

His Mom would be proud of her professional son,

And at the day’s end, he’d sleep and he’d dream,

Of riches and fame and his own racing team!

THE ONGOING SAGA OF TAYLOR AND NATE ST GERMAIN

Yes, Taylor is older than Nate, so she knew,

That when her license came, she’d bid all adieu,

The new Prius would be just a streak heading east,

A blur of raw power, a motorized beast,

She’d blow this pop stand, put pedal to floor,

Create enough buzz for the biggest press corps.

She’d set a speed record, across the whole state,

Then pass on the challenge to young brother Nate:

“Top that if you can, let’s see you go faster,

But please don’t go starting some highway disaster”!

Or better than that, let’s start a new team,

For racing in cars that are powered by steam.

They’ll be green and emit just the freshest of air,

With a slight sent of fruit, like a freshly sliced pear!

And that’s just what they did.

And they did it big time,

With steam powered cars that could stop on a dime.

And all the exhaust they would leave in their wake,

Made everyone hungry for sliced pears… and cake!

So in showrooms now, all over the land,

Buyers eat pears (but none of them canned)

While looking at cars that are saving our world,

With pictures of Taylor and Nate, flags unfurled,

That proclaim the sweet victory over nasty pollution,

And undying thanks for their clever solution.

It’s St Germain day in every country and state,

All hail to the heroes, Taylor and Nate!

Portraits on a Wall...

We're told that “you can never go back again” but of course we do it all the time. In dreams, both waking and sleeping, we return to places we’ve been... I think maybe people like to say it can’t be done as just another caution to make the most out of today. Carpe Diem! I’m fine with knowing that this present moment is actually creating the memories we’ll return to in the future anyway. But the strange thing is that although we all age and change dramatically, we do so accompanied by objects that travel in time with us, often unfazed by the passing years.

I have a small piece of scrimshawed walrus tusk that I bought for twenty five cents half a century ago from the boy who lived across the street from our house . My “I like Ike” campaign button, a gift from a great Aunt, nests with a lot of not so important papers in a fireproof box under the clothes hanging in my bedroom closet. 
A hollow gourd with an intricately carved ivory top sits on my dresser. It was used in 19^th century Japan as a cricket cage and somehow made its way across the globe to rest atop a mantle on Fonaine’s porch in Gordonsville. Then she gave it to me. Copper bowls from Sophie Ferguson, a close friend of my parents many years ago, hang in my kitchen facing an elaborate silver cocktail shaker that Ernest Brown had made in Mexico to give to my parents as a wedding present.

Grandpa Maverick still proclaims his love for Grandma on a small copper plate mounted inside the lid of the chest he carved for her. It reads: “To Ruth with love, at the beginning of our 78^th year and the 54^th of our marriage. George Madison Maverick 8-11-1970”. I’m in awe of that chest and remember well the summer I spent in Charlottesville when he carved it. We all know the picture of Grandpa sitting in his chest on the front walk at Shepherds Hill Farm. In the background the brass bell hanging from the pole was so pitted with acne scars from the BB bullets we shot to make the bell sing that it looked like the surface of the moon. One day Ruth will own that chest and it will conjure different memories for her, and eventually for her own children.

These family touchstones mark our lives as physical reminders of who we are and where we’ve been. In many ways they are better than pictures, as they spark memories of places they themselves have inhabited. They connect us to the past and continue beyond our own lives into the lives of our families yet unborn.

Such is the case with the portraits of Jesse Pitman Lewis and his wife, two of my fifth Great Grandparents. Painted in 1852, we have an old newspaper photograph somewhere of Great Grandpa Maverick inside his house on Sunshine Ranch. In the background of the photo, Jesse and his wife stare out from the living room wall. Now, three generations later, they will be the silent observers on my own wall. 

I'm just a caretaker as these things travel through time, gathering stories, known and unknown, along the way.

A Note to Susan...You Know...David's little sister...

That water was frozen solid but didn't know it. I was blue with cold, skinny, shaking to my bones while your brothers and your Dad jumped repeatedly into it, oblivious to the overwhelming numbing it produced in me. But your brothers were like that and your Dad led the way. He was the proverbial hairy chested man. Teddy Roosevelt for the group of Rough Riders. Smart, adventurous, fearless, intimidating...I assumed that he could beat up any other fathers in a 100 mile radius if there was any need to do so. And your Mom was Mother Teresa. Everything she did was for someone else. I never saw her angry or heard her raise her voice.

I wanted to live at your house, and kind of did. My house was much more Ward & June, Mom wore pearls, the living room was spotless. Dad added the presence of a very polite and cordial professor who was married to Mom. In your house loaded guns were propped up in corners, Twinkies were in the pantry, and a black racer was loose in the living room. One time David and I needed an aquarium for something and found one in the basement that hadn't been used in over a year. When we took it outside and dumped out the sand, a horn toad spilled out with it. Still alive, it sat in the sun for a few minutes and recharged its battery pack. Then we lifted up a slate stepping stone in my backyard where I knew there to be a huge anthill and sat Mr Toad on top of the hill. Having a full charge and a years worth of meals to catch up on, he put on his bib and went to work. That toad zapped and swallowed every big, juicy red ant that showed its face. He adjusted his position so that his tongue was in perfect proximity to the hole as soldiers streamed out to protect the colony. That toad ate them all, each little mini-roast beef that emerged was zapped at camera shutter speeds, until there were...none.

Well, not none, none, I guess the eggs were still there, maybe even the queen. And that same ant colony repopulated itself, big time. Several months later it was flourishing under that slate stepping stone. They should have been given the frequency with which I fed them a good breakfast. Mom thought that everyone, except Dad, had to have a “good breakfast” and she made one every day. Too much, actually. So when she took her break to drive Dad to the train station after he had a big breakfast of a cup of coffee and two Camel cigarettes, I ran outside and dumped my food under that slate. In our house a clean plate was the only pass for leaving the table. So on a lazy Summer day when David and I were trying to think of something fun to do, preferably something that involved fire, gunpowder, explosions, or really anything that could cause us to loose a finger, we had an epiphany. Why not take the lead balls we made to shoot in one of the black powder rifles and melt them down and pour the molten lead down the ant hill? It made sense. The liquid lead was heavy enough and hot enough to drain down to the bottom of the ant chambers before it cooled and solidified. Using a small cast iron skillet on the top of our gas range, we melted and poured, melted and poured. Cooling quickly, we were able to start digging up our creation soon after. But it didn't come easily. It was like digging up the root ball of a tree and we had to be careful not to loose any of the roots. It seemed like it would take us forever. Then once again we were stunned with our own creative brilliance. The hose...use the garden hose. We shoved the running hose into the ground around the ant hill, massaging the dirt surrounding the lead chambers as the water churned the area into a nice big bowl of mud soup. Digging deeper and deeper until we were up to our armpits and I had to dip the side of my head into the thick brown pool to get to the bottom of the lead, the deepest chambers. With both of us straddling the mud pit that we had created in the middle of the path from our back door to the driveway, we lifted out the lead chambers in slow motion. Inverting the dripping, muddy mess onto the grass so the weight of the lead rested on what had been the main entrance, we squirted the whole thing clean with the hose. And there it was, a three foot high and wide exact replica of an exceptionally large red ant colony, complete with incinerated ant exoskeletons. It was a thing of wonder and beauty, our own mini Pompeii of ants.

David and I built a wooden frame to hang it in and submitted it to our 9^th grade science class as a joint project. Kudos and awards followed. When we finally went back to retrieve it at the end of the school year, the teacher had broken away and discarded the frame and had mashed the lead into a ball. We were told that this had been done to create more room for storage of other things. It was a message about how education in the school system often manifested itself that resonated with me for many years afterward.

Danny

I only I knew Danny a little bit...

Off and on over many years.

He walked in with my brother when I was waiting at Abdella’s bar,

1970 something... all danger and posturing.

The swinging doors flew loudly inward,

Bright sun silhouetting two dark shapes,

Waylon and Willie sang of outlaws,

Shadows ran deep across the floor,

Long hair swinging loose and dangerous; it was high noon.

Two gunfighters here to pick me up.

Danny’s hair to his waist,

No one had that then.

These two guys looked like they meant it,

They were colorful and real.

Years later Danny was bloated with excess, fat with sloth,

We hugged when we met, unsure of our roles,

He was humiliated, knowing that his 15 minutes were long gone.

Then he was dead. Two teeth left in his smear of a mouth.

Rotting for months in some crack house basement.

Stomped lifeless, buried to fester under a pile of trash.

Squatters long gone, running like roaches exposed to the light,

All except Danny, he never left.

No surprise to anyone.

I liked the guy, didn’t everyone he hadn’t screwed?

Bits & Pieces

It's not nice to call people idiots or suggest that they have the collective brain power of a dried bean. We need to be more politically correct, more sensitive to the feelings of others. But then the paper reported that three suspects stole diesel fuel from a local oil company. It seems they broke in and poured the fuel into open containers...a mop bucket, a recycle bin, and a metal office waste basket, and then loaded their cargo into the back of their pick up truck. As they sloshed and bumped their way back home, they left a long, wet, smelly trail right up to their house... Sometimes you just have to name it. An apple is an apple and a dog is a dog...and these guys are idiots with the collective brain power of...well, you know.

Lucinda Williams sang to me as I sat watching the sun come up from my deck out by the lake. Fried oysters too hot to eat quickly, a pecan muffin with soft butter, strong black Colombian coffee...the birds were just beginning to hit the feeders and the frogs, now quiet, started to rest up for another night of frenzied lovemaking...and so it goes...

Heat snakes slither skyward off of hot metal as long lines of cars inch forward into the mouth of the Outlet Mall. Stores offer sales on overpriced fluff with designer names, bounty to be jammed into closets already fat with gluttony. Talk of recession-spawned hardships takes on an irritating whine. Misplaced values lure the pilgrims, so eager to join the sirens chorus.

Lying totally still, her eyes track my every move as I fuss around the room. Feeling the depth of her love makes me uncomfortable sometimes with the weight of her trust and of her unquestioning belief in me above all others. It's over the top; blind and irrational. The slightest attention I give her instantly causes wild and reckless joy. OK girl, lets go for a walk...

Out of sync with each other, I watch the rocking chairs move independently on the Lanai. It's not unusual for them to rock in the wind but there's no wind today. I don't know why they do that. I woke up quickly when I heard my brother say my name, his voice loud and urgent. That was several years ago when he lived in another state. The memory is very clear. Last night I saw a star moving in the night sky and then it changed direction. Sometimes the dogs run to the door, knowing Carla is about to walk in...ten minutes before she gets home. I feel, more than I know, which is easy to do. I'm not sure about anything at all.

A few stars pushed through a surly gang of clouds two nights ago and gave me a short lived expectation for clearing weather. All too soon a new mob of dark and grumbling thugs blew in and loudly smashed all glimmer of hope for even a brief view of the sunrise. The rain has been relentless, coming down more like a waterfall than just rain. It has a frightening intensity, an urgency. God must have forgotten that he left the tub running when he went out to dinner.

Water in lakes and wetlands is higher than I’ve ever seen it. Along the road to our house, Moultrie Creek winds its way out into the Inter-coastal waterway to dilute its brackish water with the coastal Atlantic's salty churn. Normally you can see vast stretches of marsh grass waving from the flats that even the highest tides don’t cover. Now we have had a week of water running so high that the tallest grasses are submerged with their peers. Huge blankets of water covering new ground provide unprecedented access for fish to spawn and crabs to celebrate a rare buffet. Everything is renewed as the once dry land is washed clean and impregnated with new life...

Moochie

“I'm sorry about your face Moochie.” I tell him that all the time. We never had a pug-faced dog before. He looks like a misguided genetic experiment. But he doesn't care and walks over to sit directly on my feet and toes. This is while I'm standing in the kitchen doing stuff. “You expect me to freeze in this position so as not to disturb you? Get off my feet!” He just looks at me...with that face. “Maybe we could transplant a long nose on you like Sasha has...would you like that boy? Maybe we could put your head on Sasha's long elegant body, would that be good? Like in the old Twilight Zone episode when Billy Mummy would wish people into the cornfield but only after he wished them into composite monsters? Would that be good?" No answer from him other than giving me the face...

To lie down again with you…

I’ve got to go now, and find a life, if only for the kids,

And leave you here, to lie alone

Until that time I wish were now

When I can lie down again with you

The day is sunny, the flowers fresh cut,

How can I leave you here?

The girls will hurt so very much, but they are strong like you

Life will push them forward, they’ll be OK,

But how can I leave you here?

Let’s lie down, let’s lie down again together.

Through crazy times I always knew,

The one safe place so warm and sweet,

To lie down again with you.

I know one day I will return,

To be with you again,

But now they say I have to go

And put each sad foot forward,

I’ll try to eat, and sleep, and make you proud,

as you watch us in your dreams,

You know my real reward will be the time

When I come back,

To lie down again with you.

All those years in life together,

We worked to get ahead,

We raised our girls we love so much, and taught them how to live

My real reward was coming home each night,

To lie down again with you.

So I’ll go on now and fake a life,

I’ll smile and laugh and cry,

That’s all stuff I need to do,

Until it’s time for me to rest,

And lie down again with you

Let’s lie down, let’s lie down again together.

Through crazy times I always knew,

The one safe place so warm and sweet,

To lie down again with you.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Response to repost in 2022)

 

Linda S Hurst

This one truly touched my heart in a place I try to deny.

Diane Mclaughlin

Just beautiful

Debi James

Lucky lady 

Antoinette Baker

This is love

Vickey Haller

beautiful poetry 

Ellen Anderson

Oh gosh! Beautiful. Thank you for your talent

 

Judi Havens

such a way with words you have, Hugh!

Marilyn Mason

Truly touching

Joy D'Elia

Beautiful

Lorraine Hoffman

Lovely stuff, Hugh.

 Elena Jones

How touching, how beautiful 

 Lee Weaver

Speechless here. No words. You are one of the most amazing men I know...have ever known...will ever know...

 

 

• • 
    

Jehovah's Witnesses Come Calling...Soldiers for God...

Forty years ago I lived in a pole house hidden in the remote woods of Chancy, Oh. Millfield, the closest town of fewer than 500 people, had been a big deal when coal mining was still shooting speed into the veins of the local economy. One day in 1930 the Sunday Creek Coal Company experienced a little blemish on their already fly spotted resume. An explosion killed 32 men...things went downhill from there and were still in a free fall when I showed up in the late 1970's at the invitation of my older brother, a Vietnam vet turned back-woods green entrepreneur  in the days before coke fucked everything up. My house had been raised in a brief gathering of hippies, high on wine laced with LSD, who all lived in the woods and took classes at Ohio University. Mostly we went to grad school to have something to do and a place to shower. The showers were communal gathering spots with endless hot water and lots of friends being careful to keep the joint dry as it ran the gauntlet of shower heads unsuccessfully trying to extinguish the fire of the entire group.

But I'm rambling. I mentioned Jehovah's soldiers coming and I have to tell you that I hold those warriors for God in high regard. It was at the pole house on a hot summer day that I heard a car laboring and wheezing up my long dirt driveway. Into view came an older model Chevy four door coupe, just barely clearing the raised mounds of cracked clay as the tires sunk deep into ruts left by tire chains necessitated by the severity of the previous winter. The car was overflowing with the soft flesh of four large, Christian women on a mission. I was electric headed, totally nude, and magnificently stoned. Being on my own property, viewing the advance of uninvited interlopers, unembarrassed and unwilling to retreat, I stood my ground. They continued to advance. With a sputtering lurch the engine clunked to a stop, sounding like it would never start again. The Chevy choked out a variety of pops and clicks as all four ladies struggled to open doors and plant thick ankles firmly into ruts of dried mud.

After unhurried introductions interspersed with my repeated assertions that we would be hard pressed to find common ground, a simply wonderful conversation blossomed that afternoon in the front room (which was also the back room, bedroom, kitchen...every room of my place) of my pole house. Modesty had overtaken any eagerness to be confrontational. I wrapped up in a towel after it became clear that these gals were ready to roll with wherever Jesus took them.

Over an Orange crate coffee table displaying my Whole Earth Catalog and now their copies of The Watchtower and Awake! we talked. I was fine with their polite decline when my offer to pass fat joints of some great Colombian Red was politely turned down. Four large ladies, overdressed and oblivious to the heat, sat on my couch lined up like carnival ducks with long skirts and no hint of judgment. It was totally surreal. We had a great conversation, back and forth. They listened to my points, as I did theirs. Hopefully they still remember that afternoon as fondly as I do. 

I wonder where they are today? I can't help but wish that everyone could get along and share extremely polar views without becoming defensive or hostile, as we did on that sweaty afternoon, in a one-room cabin in the woods, so very long ago.

The Most Insidious Drug/the Homogenization of America

Ever since the 1950's when it became commonplace to have a TV set in the home, we have eagerly tied off and shot up massive doses of the most insidious drug ever invented. Long hours of programming over many years has steadily erased individuality. The homogenization of America was accomplished by way of television programming targeted at the lowest common denominator, which it also encouraged to embrace fast food lifestyles and a culture of insatiable consumerism. We lost our way and lost ourselves.

Before the TV drug, our dress and lifestyle largely reflected regional styles. Driving cross-country offered a taste of a diverse and ever changing tableau. Now the main highway through any town USA is indistinguishable, one from the other, and the shared lifestyles and aspirations of the people therein so similar as to make meaningful differentiation's as rare as hen's teeth.

Now the monster has evolved into the master. Young people walk around, thumbs flying, staring into devices, hypnotized and totally unaware of their surroundings. A dozen mimes could try to get past the imaginary glass walls encircling zombie twitters...and go unnoticed. Is it essential that we speak with each other in person? That we acknowledge others in close proximity? Perhaps not, but I don't even want to know what the next generation of electronics and the puppet masters who pull the advertising strings have in store for us...

Don't keep asking what I'm doing...

Don’t keep asking what I’m doing,
You may not want to know,
That I’m thinking of pursuing,
A life like Jaques Cousteau.

But watching seafood live their lives,
Is not my cup of tea.
I’d rather eat it topped with chives,
And crackers spread with Brie.

The mysteries of the ocean,
Hold no lure for me
My driving goal, my raison d’etre?
Cooking lobsters on TV!

Zen and the Dishwasher Fruit

OK, I admit it. I'm a boring guy. No mountain climbing, no sky diving...hell, we live near the beach and don't even swim, much less surf. Although I've never been much of a swimmer, I'm even less so now. I'm convinced that there is a local shark harboring passionate dreams of eating my ankles. Certainly he's with the gang that we see in pictures shot from low flying aircraft,one of the many sharks looking skyward at all the appetizers riding the waves on surfboards above them between their hungry mob and the sun, oblivious to the the dark mugging being planned below. I like to stare at the water but other than that I don't even want water in my drinks, unless it's frozen into little squares. Squares, but not the half moon shapes that my own refrigerator's ice-maker cranks out. Those things hug the rim of the glass and create a dam, so when I tilt the glass enough to get a drink, the liquid bursts out onto either side of my mouth, forming a quick stream that shoots down my chest from neck to navel, soaking my shirt from the inside. Of course it's doubly nasty with sugared drinks or anything other than plain water, which I never add ice to anyway.

What the heck am I trying to say here? Oh yea, I'm a boring guy. Very domestic, a homebody. Maybe I believe that I actually have a small degree of control at home, in my own little cocoon. Being married, I know that's an illusion, but it comforts me to think in those terms. One of my more satisfying and frequent tasks is emptying the dishwasher. I love to put the clean dishes away. Each item has a specific place where it rests until called up for duty once again. For me, emptying the dishwasher becomes an orchestrated dance of specific movement with a focus on being as efficient and fluid as possible. Collecting all similar items that store in the same area before opening their cabinet door and putting them inside en masse is the norm. You get the picture.

It's impossible for me to just turn off my brain and let it happen arbitrarily. So I guess it isn't a Zen thing at all, I just liked the sound of the title. I do obsess about the movement, flow, and overall efficiency of the task though. It may be disturbing but at least it always has a satisfying conclusion. There's a period at the end of it. OK, that's done.

But it's not only about anal retentive concern for my kitchen traffic patterns. Each item plucked from the dishwasher comes wrapped with a memory that the detergent can't wash away. Certainly the lobster pot reminds me of sitting on the deck last night: a steaming cauldron on the table, a cold beer in hand, a heaping plate of anticipation, already served. I marvel at the Ron Popeil steak knives that have held up so well for “only $19.95”...but wait, there's more! Like Ron's solid flavor injector that I used on the pork chops two days ago (a $30.00 value) but wait, there's more... There's a special satisfaction in seeing each dinner plate completely clean, sterile, and free of dog saliva after the dogs licked them dog-clean last night, before I carefully packed them into the dishwasher ( the plates, not the dogs). Although it really isn't logical to be comforted by the cleanliness, knowing that before the sun sets there is a high probability that one of those same dogs is going to get close enough to my face to dart a quick tongue into my mouth before I can pull away. I may as well lick the dogs assets directly. It is nice to see that Carla's two new antique plates she recently uncovered at her favorite Goodwill store are squeaky clean and ready to join the hundreds of others that she's going to do....something, with though. And so it goes, with each item, but wait, there's more...until there isn't, and everything is put away. Period.

Rod Stewart said: “Every picture tells a story, don't it?” Well Rod, every item in the dishwasher does too. But I guess you need to be a pretty boring guy to enjoy putting the clean dishes away as much as I do.

Are you happy?

I believe that anyone who says that they wouldn’t change a thing can only mean that in the sense that they are happy with the way things have turned out. We all have regrets but the road not taken takes us somewhere else. Do things work out best for those who proactively set their course and shoot for a target or do things work out best for those who make the best of the way things work out? Although I believe the latter, it ultimately all gets down to attitude and outlook.

A recent study on happiness found that most of us have our own internal happiness “thermostat” set at a place that is unique to each of us as individuals. So the paraplegic crash victim and the lottery winner both pretty much return to their own “setting” within a year after their life altering event. That said, financial happiness, appears to be relative. In Costa Rica where the median income is about $3,000 per annum, the people seem to be just as happy as in the USA where annual income is, of course, much higher. We may strive to “keep up with the Jones” but that can work at almost any level, assuming basic needs are covered.

One advantage of getting older, I’ve found, is that as I age into official geezer-hood, my give-a-shit level declines accordingly. I prefer to concentrate on things other than the material. So the money becomes less important as we can say “been there, done that”. After all, most of us spend the first half of our lives acquiring two of everything Ron Popeil has to sell and the second half of our lives trying to get rid of that stuff. Turns out the kids don’t want it either (they want to collect their own junk) so it sits in the garage until we move or make a conscious effort to simplify our lives.

So when you ask me: “are you happy?” Knowing that we all choose our reaction, I choose to react with gratitude...and, yes, I'm happy.

Thanks for asking.

The Sound of an Angel

Many of these songs invite me to sit on a red futon in a

log cabin

now long buried under weeds and brier.

Unexpectedly, your little girl voice, so pure and gentle, sings along.

You thought I wasn’t listening but I was,

doing my best to hold close to my heart forever

the sound of an angel.

Just Sayin...

Sixteen black paws churn a sandy path, obscuring tracks of deer, racoons and feral hogs...night traffic punched out now and heading for sheltered hollows. Frenzied breath forms a leading cloud as if over a dog-steam locomotive speeding through the cool, damp air... before the sun claims the day as it's own. Now is our time to run the woods and chase all laggards home. My braying pack of misfits share a vision of what they they once were before couch and pillows formed their beds and meals doled out of cans never challenged them to a foot race...

_______________________________________________________________________________

No one wants to drive through E. Palatka, much less live there, but the highway West leaves little choice. The area is low. Soggy cabbage fields turn into acres of mud with the slightest rain. Culverts run like train tracks sandwiching roads with dark water as polluted as the local culture. Closed business advertize failure with the remnants of makeshift signs, misspelled words growing smaller and more crowded to the right from lack of planning. Depression and desperation cover everything like a damp blanket, as inescapable as the pesticides that have poisoned the aquifer for more than 80 years.
_______________________________________________________________________________

The restaurant is Corky Bells. You probably remember them from their former location. It was more fish camp, this one is more Jimmy Buffett. Now they front the river in Palatka with tiered decks and tiki bars. Mostly fried seafood, chowder, Hush Puppies, grits, greens, sweet tea...you know the drill. Great location to sit in the sun with a beer, watching obnoxious young men tear up the water on Ski Doos. Hoping that prayer is somehow more effective in Palatka, I pray they fall off and are encircled by alligators who glance in our direction for a quick thumbs down before we get to watch them eat their own lunch for a change.
_______________________________________________________________________________

Perspective affords our own wise council... and I was flooded with it as Carla told me of the little girl taken prematurely by C section from her crackhead mother. The parent no more than a child herself. There lay the baby in a hospital bed, 3 months old, with a trach tube oozing and bubbling, stabbed into her neck, allowing...breath. Born without a working brain, deaf, blind...her two legs stiff and stretched out painfully in a permanent spasm. As a ward of the state she'll be taken care of as long as she lives...in her crib, alone. Carla spent her shift that night, rubbing the child's back, stroking her fuzzy head. We sat in the sunshine of our back yard after Carla got home and told me of her night. In the face of such horrifically sad images, all I could think about as was how bright and strong our own two girls had been, and are.

________________________________________________________________________________

You think gay marriage is controversial? I think it controversial that there are still those who would try to legislate just which consenting adults are allowed to marry. If the national elections were held today, Obama would get my vote. I have never played nor watched a game of football in my life and could care less about it. I believe that religion is largely a reflection of the culture one is born into and that there are many paths to spiritual fulfillment. You and I may be on opposite ends of many things and that's OK, but I also believe the world would be a much better place with more people like you in it and am proud to call you a friend. Republican, Democrat, black, white, gay, straight, Christian, Hindu...we are all more alike than different and that in itself is cause for celebration. Conversely, it is the closed minded zealousness of each different group insisting that their way is the only way that hurts us the most as we travel together through this blink of an eye we call our lives.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Carla: Where's the scraper?

Hugh: The scraper? What scraper?

Carla: So I can get this stuff up off the bottom of the pan.

Hugh: You mean a spatula?

Carla: Yes

Hugh: It's in that end drawer with the can opener and ladles... where the kitchen scissors are.

Carla: Oh

Hugh: It's been there since we moved in, just a little more than...what? Three years ago?

Carla: Hum...

Carla knows and cares as much about the kitchen and things that go on in there as I know and care about most professional sports...or her collections of china and old fabrics...

Athens Alabama, 1969

Orlando, Howard and I were sitting on the twin beds in my place, smoking, up a storm. A room on the front corner of the top floor. I split the cost with Al Wheeler since the college had to pay for the new dorms and forced everyone to rent a room. Al had rented a place off campus, so our dorm room became a private room for me. Anyway, we had the obligatory towel rolled and stuffed in place at the base of the door to prevent the hallway from getting too smelly and with vice grips holding the lock handle, even a master key couldn't open the door from the outside. Al Wheeler had turned me on to the Derek and the Dominoes album, “Layla”, and it was cranking away. With Mescaline jammed down into my bedpost, some great Panama Red bagged and taped up under the sink, and a couple of hits of LSD flattened into the lining of a blanket...I was well supplied to weather any storm life could conger up, or possibly go to jail for a very ong time. A loud knock on the door told me that George of the Jungle, a townie known mainly for his pot sales, had arrived as expected. Unlatching the vice grips, I got down on my knees and cracked open the door, looking up from floor level just to goof on George. But it wasn’t George. Dean Hayes was standing there smiling down at me as clouds of smoke rolled out of the open door and gave our beloved Dean of Men a big smelly, welcoming hug.

Standing up straight with shock and almost faint with paranoia, I stepped aside as Dr Hayes walked into the room and sat down on one of the twin beds, shoulder to shoulder, between Orlando and Howard. I had never known him to visit any of the student rooms or even having been in any of the dorm buildings before. Dr Hayes sat calmly, almost Buddha like in his demeanor, between a very stoned Orlando and our wild-eyed mute playmate, Howard. An obscenely bright knife of light from the still slightly cracked door cut through lazy clouds of exhaled ganja in my dimly lit room. We all sat silent, watching the smoke clouds drift in the light like huge gray jellyfish undulating in and out of dark shadows. Dr Hayes broke the silence with unrelated pleasantries. Mumbled responses followed embarrassing silences.

That was it. And then the good doctor got up and left the room. Yes ladies and gentlemen, Elvis has left the building. To go get the cops and have us thrown in some Godforsaken Athens Alabama jailhouse? To prepare the expulsion papers for an obvious bunch of losers? No, the nervous passage of time told us that he just left our room, no more, no less. But his visit had made quite an impression.

Although I never had Dr Hayes for any classes, my understanding was that he was well traveled. Whispers of exotic experiences in Morocco were probably spun by students who wanted to add to his mystique but helped me put his visit into perspective none the less. Expulsion would have served no purpose. The fact that we were young guys smoking pot in 1969 in an extremely conservative area of the country was just an ironic twist of fate. A broader, wiser world view added a balance that we were too young to appreciate.

Later that year, just before my own graduation, Dr Hayes offered me a job as his assistant. I think he wanted some team members from outside of the cultural island that was Athens in the late 1960’s. He was seeking balance, as eventually, we all did.

stined to join.

Letter to Jim Koch, Founder of The boston Beer Co/Sam Adams Beer

Hi Jim,

Love your beer! That said, I had a problem yesterday with a Summer Ale and thought it best to bring it to the attention of the big guy himself. (Don’t start looking around the room…I mean you!)

Call me crazy, but I like working weekends. That way I take Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s off during the week and I feel like I’m on vacation while everyone else is working. Sure, I spend all day on Tuesday doing the honey-do stuff and generally running around. Yesterday I took my wife, Carla, to her Orchid club meeting and pretended I was interested. We ran errands together, had some lunch out, and, all-in-all, I was a good hubby who cared about together time and being a couple with a common direction. We got stuff done and had a good time. Great.

Don’t get me wrong, I do like all of that. It’s just that if I were to be perfectly honest, which could be dangerous, it is the second day of my “weekend” during the week that I really look forward to. That’s when I have earned my time to have my own fun. Sure I work hard all week, go to the gym, cook, clean, pay bills, run my daughter, who doesn’t drive, all over creation…but my own time is Wednesday…day two of my “weekend”. That’s when I can justify to myself and Carla that I have earned some “me” time. I cleaned the pool but it could always use a little extra. That’s where our story really begins.

Years ago I brewed my own beer at home. It was good but the time and hassle were just too much. Then you guys came along. Very soon I knew that you should brew beer, and I should concentrate on my own work. You’re good at brewing beer and I’m good at my own job. Frankly, your beer is better than my home brew was, so the decision to buy Sam Adams and let each of us just do what we do best wasn’t very difficult.

So anyway, I had earned my time in the pool. Carla works nights so she was sleeping. Chores were done, bills paid, lawn mowed, I went to the gym in the morning. OK, now I could have a few hours of “me” time. Sam Adams Summer Ale was just the ticket. I put my Styrofoam cooler next to the pool, cubbies at the ready. It was late in the day with the sun shining hot in a cloudless Florida sky. Accompanied by the low drone of the pool filter, I jumped in the water and repeatedly threw the Frisbee for Kira and the ball for Sasha. The fact that I was exercising the dogs was even more justification for a cold, hops laden, reward.

A little slice of heaven. Beautiful June day, chores all done, Carla sleeping, dogs getting their exercise…what me worry? I plan this stuff out. A six pack of Samuel Adams Summer Ale put into my Styrofoam cooler with some ice packs. My I-pod and a speaker to plug into. Towel, cell phone. I was all set for a few hours of fun. And that’s what it was. Cool blue water, hot sun, frequent underwater Manatee swims across the bottom of the pool. Surfacing to the sounds of Alison Krauss and Union Station… Sasha waiting poolside, panting rapidly, ready for me to grab the ball from her mouth and throw it down to the far end of the lawn. Life is good, and that was great. But reality struck hard and fast.

I plan well. Everything is within my control. Right. So as this epiphany unfolded, I came to my last beer. One last cold Samuel Adams Summer Ale. Perfect. That lone beer, right then, was everything. Seven days of working toward various goals, several hours of total, vacuous pleasure, capped by the best-of-the-best. My final Summer Ale. It was like Chevy Chase said: “This is all I need…just this last Sam Adams Summer Ale...

I grabbed the opener from the Styrofoam cooler, and did the deed. That’s when my world turned ugly. The glass ring at the top of the neck of the bottle broke off. Shards of glass fell into the bottle as the beautiful head of that last Summer Ale rose to taunt me. Even though I though about it, I knew that I couldn’t drink it. How would you feel if you had to pour your very last Sam Adams out onto the ground, your last beer, on your last day off work, knowing that this was it for another week? Bummer.

So here is my point. I’ve been grievously injured. Psychologically turned upside down. Physically threatened by shards of glass poised to rupture my innards. I even got a cut on my thumb that bled at least a drop or two. So I’ll ask the question: How about a replacement beer to help me through my pain? I know that the faulty bottle top wasn’t specifically your fault but certainly you don’t want one of your biggest fans to be traumatized for life. I mean, how will I get over it? I guess I could try…with a cold Summer Ale…or two…

That’s it. My sad story. Almost too much to overcome…unless I had a good beer and a Wednesday afternoon…

Thanks for listening, Jim, hope you can help.

Cheers!


Hugh Haller

PS- If you ever get down this way, give me a call. We could hook up for dinner & a cold one… (If I can ever get over yesterday’s trauma).