Each and every leaf is a wonder

I am headed north on Interstate 77 crossing a bridge after having eaten grilled shrimp at a lakeside café on Lake Norman. I’m enjoying a gorgeous Indian summer day which makes an old Baptist like me nervous. We fear temptation and spontaneity. I’ve a sudden urge to abandon all obligations and live in a commune by the lake whose members worship blue skies and forbid the use of clocks.

I have a mountain of work. My city job demands 7/24 hours of my time and by some misfire of my DNA I also write a weekly newspaper column and short stories which all demands an equal amount of effort. So I don’t walk on beaches or sun bath looking up into the sky which right now is a beautiful Carolina blue. You don’t have to gaze at it long to know there is a God.

My gaze returns back to the interstate and I realize I see rear red lights that are not moving--- but I am. I apply the brakes. I am annoyed at this sudden delay.
About a hundred feet ahead of me are blue lights and one of the northbound lanes is closed. There is an eighteen wheeler lying on its side in the median and a crumpled small car, both doors open and bent, nearby.
A body lies covered in a white sheet.

Traffic crawls along and I come upon a scene of highway patrolmen in their black and grey uniforms and fire control people in bulky dark suits with bright reflector stripes on them. A small group of patrolmen move between me and the scene and the covered body is blocked from view. I see an officer talking, pointing to the ground, gathering evidence. I’m no longer annoyed but feel somehow chastened and I am careful to look straight ahead and drive slow.

A Carolina blue sky over Lake Norman and boats are pulling skiers, young women in bathing suits walk along narrow beaches, joggers are out and a kingfisher plunges into the water and arises with a small fish. Today you’ve seen sudden death and now life immediately becomes a fragile lovely thing. You roll down the windows and breathe in the fresh air blowing from the lake and realize you’ve never seen trees and leaves like you do now. Each individual leaf is a wonder.

My home is tucked away in eastern Statesville and I arrive to a house that somehow looks different from when I left this morning. I live here. That takes on a whole new meaning now.

I walk through the house and out into my fenced back yard, I just want to stand outside and appreciate everything---- God, please help me be thankful— and suddenly I’m hit from behind by eighty pounds of happy boxer. For nine years she’s greeted me almost every day wanting to play but I usually just pet her head, say a nice word and keep walking.

But today I face her and go into a crouched position. She’s momentarily shocked, she stares, her tongue lolls sideways. Her expression says “What’s this? The chubby guy never wanted to play before.”

Then she grabs an old ball and I chase her around the yard. In thirty seven seconds we both collapse gasping for breath—I’m laughing and scratch her ears and look at her grizzled old face now bleached white by age. I hug her and we both roll over in the grass.

The news said the truck drivers name was Richard. They probably called him Rick. Sorry you couldn’t be here to play, Rick. I’m so sorry you had to leave

Columnist slashes costs, maintains quality of writing

Economic uncertainties have compelled me to take a hard look at the revenue I make from this column which revealed I am actually earning a mere pittance of the $3.7 million that was projected for 2011. Horrors! Therefore to slash costs there will be a 90 percent reduction in the truth, we’ll outsource editing (China) and no more spell check. I appreciate your patience during this tranzition/transition (sp?) and apologize in advance for any confusion.

They call this economic disaster an upset which is a mild term for an event so traumatic that last Tuesday while in Charlotte it moved a man to approach me in a manner that implied he had a revolver in his pocket.

There was a time I wanted to live in Charlotte, I thought it reflected sophistication to live in a big city until I realized that finding a parking space was like meeting your ex-wife at a gun show—real iffy and stressful. The man was waiting behind the 34 inch expandable waist section as I was shopping for blue jeans at a Wal-Mart. I thought the jeans made me look paunchy. I wanted a slim look and was thinking maybe I should cut out pasta or go organic or maybe plunge into a vegan life style. But then carrots don’t agree with me. And I hate cauliflower.

Anyway, this guy with a mousy face and gray ponytail appears out of a rack of denim and says, “Mister, your column saved my marriage. Beth almost left me when they sent my job to China, the bank repossessed our house, I had a bout with gum disease and now I’m facing a prison term for icing my banker. But every Sunday we read your column and we feel better about ourselves. You’re very talented and could you hand over a ten so I can buy my little girl an ice cream cone with sprinkles?”

Suddenly I had a memory. I shot a man in Reno just to see him die. He was a mousy faced publisher with a ponytail. I had written the perfect American novel and he said if we’d glue it together it would make the perfect American paper weight. His name was Bernie and he stayed tipsy on a drink he called the Seizure, which was made of gin, whiskey and vermouth and he kept company with a dark haired floozy in a tight black dress and red lipstick named Frankie who said “Mr. Bartender” a lot. Later I found she was a big fan of my writing.

So the man appeared to be fidgeting with a gun in his pocket brooding over the raw deal life had handed him. I gave him a ten and then he---wait, did I say Charlotte? No, I was in Miami and this was a Thursday—not Tuesday, my column is due on Friday—I got confused because I was thinking of reducing my writing time---ten minutes to write this column instead of the usual four hours (no kidding).

Why was I in Miami? That’s what I really wanted to tell you about. As the column goes through a transition I’ll need rest so I sent myself to Miami for a vacation. Is that cool or what?

So then Mr. Ponytail says, “I like your stories” and shuffled away. Right then I resolved to maintain my high standards of writing—it seems to bless people. I’ve also decided to remain humble.

And that my friend is what will get us through this economic mess---a work ethic and being true to yourself. So stay fokused-phocused---focused (sp?).

Conspiracies lead to barbeque and reconciliation

One morning you finish your Danish, consider reaching for another but instead you Google around for government conspiracies that seek to block your pursuit of life, liberty and happiness.

And suddenly it dawns on you---what about Daylight Savings time? What gives the government the right to tell you when the sun comes up or down? It’s the King’s tyranny all over again.

So you join the Peoples Movement for Sunlight (PMS) – a volatile angry bunch. You go to meetings. You make banners. You begin to hang out with women who wear lots of turquoise jewelry and shapeless cotton dresses and aged men with grey hair in braided rattails and you consider learning to play the sitar. You get your fighting orders from coded weather reports aired between 7:00 and 7:09 each morning on the Billy Buck Country Legends radio show.

Before all this you were worried about your bobble-head novelty store and the declining sales of life-size bobble head figures of rock stars but that’s all gone now thanks to Obama’s handouts to big business-- your main competitor was a large corporation in Boise Idaho-- and now you’ve lost the house on Lake Norman and the chalet at Jackson Hole Wyoming.

Janet, tired of your sudden outbursts of sobbing, took the kids to Chicago and you moved into a studio apartment downtown so now you have plenty of time to write scathing letters to the editor and attend PMS rallies and go to the shooting range with your AK-47 to practice for the pending revolution.

You use to be a church going Republican, a Rotarian, a card carrying Food Lion shopper, an easy going laid back kind of guy but no more. You’ve been roused from a deep mental slumber after a lifetime of apathy which, now you know, was induced by food coloring approved by the US Dept. of Agriculture designed to make you lethargic and docile and so now you eat only organic vegetables ordered on-line from Peru. Now you are alert and aware of other social issues and you can remember birthdays and anniversaries.

Your awareness compels you to be active in other causes and you start wearing sandals. You’re now against the forty hour work week, fluoride, internet pop-ups and the Charlotte Observer.

You don’t necessarily agree with the right wing Sunlighters that believe there should be strict rules based on scripture as to when the sun comes up or with the left wingers that believe the government uses airport body scans to lower melatonin levels in your body. It doesn’t matter. These differences disappear within the united effort of battling a Washington that attempts to regulate even the sun and is indifferent to the needs of bobble-head shop owners.

Then “The View” TV talk show does a story on the PMS movement (Whoopi Goldberg endorsed it) and so does NBC news. All the Sunlighters except you are delighted. Sarah Palin jumps in and says she’s been there, done that, got the T-shirt and claims we should put the sun back into the hands of God. Chairmen of both the Republican and Democrat parties begin to meet with PMS leaders for breakfast where they order $57 muffins.

You realize the movement has now tilted and is leaning towards Politics as Usual (PU). It’s sad.

You must choose---remain on the front lines and be a pawn or take that job you were offered cooking pork barbeque down at the Proud Pig diner. Call you crazy---but you chose the Pig.

Now you chop pork, joke with the customers and Janet called during lunch---she misses you and she wants to talk.

A day alone does not go as planned

Friday evening, my wife leaves town and suddenly I had the house to myself for the weekend. I ordered pizza and made big plans but plans do not always go the way we hope.

Saturday morning I awoke at my usual 5:30 a.m. but decided to sleep late. I changed position five times and looked at the clock-- it was 5:34 a.m. I got up.

I showered with the bathroom door open and sang “Heartbreak Hotel” Elvis style, toweled off and shimmied, nude and glossy white, to the bedroom. The dog was coming down the hall, saw me and tried to hurl herself out of a nearby window.

For breakfast I decided to cook a coronary occlusion—four eggs (count’em-- four fried in grease), eight pieces of bacon and three slices of white toast buried under a mound of grape jelly. The coffee was so strong it I wanted to wear a tuxedo and sing tenor like Pavarotti did.

The house needed cleaning so I loaded some cd’s, turned up the volume and danced to “Jenny Jenny” while pushing the old upright Hoover. Later the kitchen broom handle served as a stage microphone and I sang into it while I accompanied Neil Diamond in “Sweet Caroline”. We got a standing ovation from thousands of dust motes and so Neil and I did “Forever in Blue Jeans” complete with choreographed gyrations with my hips.

I declared an end to house work and lay down on the couch to read. I had just gotten comfortable, words were blurring-- a nap was in the making when suddenly the doorbell rang. It was a pair of Jehovah Witness. I was polite, they left and I went back to the couch. I was getting pretty comfortable again when the phone rang. My mother was calling to see if I was relaxing?

Lunch was cheese with a glass of home-made wine given to me by a friend. I sat out on our deck and watched cardinals and finches. I took a tentative sip---the wine tasted like cod-liver oil with grease solvent.

Later back inside I heard the boxer scratching to come in and so I opened the door. Apparently she had been standing in some mud and before I could stop her there were brown paw prints on the just-mopped kitchen floor and then there were a billion paw prints on the living room carpet. With a sigh I got out the Hoover and mop but no Neil Diamond.

By mid-afternoon I was finished with cleaning and decided to go for a ride in the country on my motorcycle. BMW (Beemer) motorcycles are very dependable but today mine refused to start. This has never happened before. Where to look?

Two hours later a dirty terminal connection was found suspect. I used some of the wine to clean the grease off the terminal. The Beemer cranked right up but now it was too late for a ride. I put the jar of wine on a shelf in the shop.

For dinner I had bought the ingredients for a recipe I wanted to try and with Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major playing in the background I made Moroccan Shrimp with Tomato Relish. It was good--I did Emeril Lagasse proud-- and ate downstairs while watching CNN. Afterwards I cued up “Band of Brothers” on the DVD but fell asleep and awoke hours later just as Easy Company was told World War II was over.

Some days things just don’t go as planned but there are upsides. If you need some grease cleaner call me—I have a whole jar of it in the shop.