Some thoughts on love, politics and hot-air balloons

People accuse us conservatives of being a bit smug, uppity and believing we have all the answers and Lord knows they are right. Therefore when three of us had lunch recently all agreed before we sat down: no politics. We already know what we are going to say so why waste our breath? Knowing Everything is a good old American trait along with self-righteousness and baseball which is all preferable to cruelty, torture and having Vladimir Putin run your country. Nevertheless we all must remind ourselves: you’re not better than others and not much different than anyone else (Sunday School Lesson, June 1999 “Judgement”).

However by the time I’d taken the first bite of my eggroll we were deep into politics so I deliberately said a non-uppity non-smug thing: I don’t think any of us truly believe everything we claim to believe. It’s all biological. You hear a phrase and a response comes out, like Pavlov’s dog. We are all specks on a spinning ball lost within a vast creation of galaxies and if the planet exploded today and we lost everything---Bach, Aristotle, Socrates, Heather Locklear--- it would make no difference whatsoever in the big picture so why be concerned about the November election?

There was a long pause of silence then somebody said that Barack had lost 5 percentage points in the eastern states and the Republicans better get their bus out of the ditch.

What I didn’t get to talk about was the hot air balloon that landed in my front yard. We touched on the Electoral College and somebody ranted about the price of gas but the balloon was never mentioned.

A hot air balloon? (Thank you for asking).

A beautiful Saturday morning and I’m standing in the bathroom looking at a piece of soap that resembles the state of Virginia. I hear a thunderous blowing sound directly overhead and I look up but the ceiling is still there, just where it was suppose to be. Then I heard my wife scream for me to come to the front door, NOW---for God’s sake, NOW!

Wearing blue boxers ( with a decorative paramecia pattern) and a lathered face I run downstairs wondering if maybe Putin had taken one of my stories the wrong way--- only to see this enormous hot air balloon sitting in my front yard close to the front door and people piling out of the basket beneath it.

I found some pants, wiped my face and raced out the door to see if I could be of some help but everything was under control. What is the etiquette for guests that drop out of mid air and onto your front lawn at 7:00 a.m.? We offered coffee.

Some of us talked while the balloon was packed away in a van. Seems a passenger, Dr. Joe Perry , wanting to give his lovely wife Gaylynn an anniversary gift decided to simulate the moment she swept him off his feet, so they left the ground together.

An early morning balloon ride with someone you love. Your spouse, your best informed critic still wants to go to new heights with you. Amazing. So you hold hands, the earth passes beneath you, the wind touches your cheek and you feel their warmth beside you. Suddenly you know what is really important and it’s all right there in your hand.

I think just before the first presidential debate we should throw the two candidates into a hot air balloon, send it aloft and see if it doesn’t help bring about something profound. Surely, like Joe Perry, they could rise to the occasion.

Readers can write to Joe at Joehud@hotmail.com and see his work on www.viewfromthehudson.com, http://www.ncwriters.org/ or FanStory.com

Moon over Bogue Sound

The beach is another world. You wake up late in the morning and lie in bed because you can and New York is already on it’s second coffee, the next scandal in Washington is just coming to light ( GSA spends $20,000 on chicken wings at Opryland) and back home a county commissioner falsifies a building inspection report that snowballs into a resignation. It all seems so distant.

You wander out onto the balcony with your laptop which is full of emails but you don’t have to answer them because you’re at the beach. Everybody thinks you’re attending a workshop on creativity-- sitting in a lotus position near the surf while a priestess clad in a white kira plays ancient Malaysian melodies on a bamboo flute.

Back home it’s hot and dry and it makes you jittery whereas the beach is hot but it’s all part of the show. The local residents that I know thrive on heat and are generous normal people with a smattering of zealots that love to surf, hike and shoot hoops in 100 degree weather. I grew up thinking you had to choose between being laid back or being productive but at the beach they believe you can have it all.

Which is how I ended up 800 feet in the air over Bogue Sound in eastern North Carolina dangling beneath a parasail with a big yellow smiley face on it. A parasail? Thank you for asking.

Not wanting to waste a moment of my vacation, upon arrival at the beach I booked (productive) a sailing flight (laid back) with DragonFly Parasails whose staff are all flat bellied and look like they attend high school until you hear them talk about their wives and children. Then you realize they look so young because you’re getting so …ah, mature.

Jason, a sun baked stick thin fellow strapped me into a harness that supports your legs and arms but forces your rear to hang down and out in the air. You stand at the back of the boat on a platform, the captain pushes the throttle to Pretty Fast and the parasail fills and you’re snatched up into the air. The boat falls away from you.

Suddenly you are eye level with seagulls and realize you don’t belong up here. God never told you to do this and the harness that on the ground looked strong enough to lift the state of Vermont, now, in your professional opinion, seems to be thinner, maybe a little aged.

And still up you go further into the air and the boat becomes a speck and there you dangle and sway like hung meat with your rear end pushed out into the air. You feel the air all around you, in fact you’re feeling a lot of air, air in places that normally never get air, places that public law declares should never be exposed to air.

On launch your bathing suit was accidently pulled down.

Way down. And from the looks of everything you really should work out more.
To anyone looking up from beneath they see a moving white celestial orb with hemorrhoids all under a big yellow smiley face. Eye catching.

You drift down near a bridge and a car slows. The driver, a decent Christian father, does a double take and you imagine his sweet little children all pointing open mouthed while their mother swoons.

But it wasn’t so bad. I made a lot of friends while I was slowly reeled back in. Complete strangers in nearby boats waved and cheered me on. And what can you say? It’s the beach and that’s another world.

Let's Joke Around

I was amused lately when a man who sells chicken sandwiches answered a question regarding marriage and suddenly conservatives and liberals are hurling accusations at each other like javelins. Massive crowds gathered at the eateries to show support or condemnation which created huge waiting lines. A few just wanted lunch.

These are Spanish Inquisition days where every statement is analyzed for the tiniest bit of potential offense. This is a sad fact in the country that gave the world Micky Mouse, Red Skelton, Jackie Gleason, Bill Cosby, Johnny Carson and dozens of funny TV sitcoms. Now we’ve become a shrill tense group of people glaring at each other with our arms folded across our chests. Cars, the internet and email all physically separates us, we hear our own voice too much.

We don’t joke anymore.

Back before we decided we were all oppressed there were two good ways to get to know a person. You could work beside someone doing an unpleasant job like cleaning up road kill or digging postholes and another way was to tell jokes-- like the one about a horse that walks into a bar and just stands there. The bar tender looks at him and says “Why the long face?”

I’ve heard that joke a million times and it still makes me smile. And there were good old Knock Knock jokes about Dexter and the halls and the one about Mr. Walter when the well runs dry. And of course there was the Buddhist that refused Novocain for his root canal because he wanted to transcend dental medication.

We use to laugh a lot. Then everybody got cell phones and there was no need to see each other.

Now, jokes are only told but up until the 1960’s people use to play jokes. Cars and machines were simple. My father and his pals disassembled a neighbor’s Farmhall tractor and reassembled it in the man’s tobacco barn. It took the farmer a day to find his tractor. Of course there was good natured pay back later. Tying tiny bells to the bottom of a young married couple’s box spring mattress always got a wink and a smile. Many homes, like your grandmothers’, had outhouses that your friends tipped over at the most delicate moment. That’s how I learned to cuss.

Telling a joke right has nothing to do with your political affiliation, religion, education or income. You do not need physics or theology everyday but the ability to tell a good joke always comes in handy. Some people have a knack for it like making hoop shots with a swish.

Nobody knows where jokes come from. Years ago I was standing in the Charlotte Douglas airport watching a news report on a big screen TV that was following up on a president that had sexual relations with a young intern. Standing beside me in a blue business suit was a gentleman I had never seen before. He turned to me and said “Did you hear Belk is having a Presidents Day sale? All men’s pants are half off!” He had heard a version of that joke in a New York diner.

Jokes help you release tension, even oldies like my favorite fifth grade joke,” Why do gorillas have large nostrils? Because they have big fingers.” Or “The blind man picked up a hammer and saw.”

Your life may be a mess, your clothes tattered and torn and you’ve misplaced your car keys but a good joke every now and then will do you good. So tell a joke, give out a laugh and let’s all sit down and eat.

Have the good sense to flee perfection

Recently we’ve had early morning showers followed by bright balmy days which made for wonderful evenings to sit outside until late and wax long and hard about life like you did when you were in college. Days like that are almost perfect, so of course you immediately pack your bags.

Perfection produces distance thunder---a warning of pending storms. The moment one experiences the perfect and the ideal you realize with dread that the inevitable decline of life is just ahead---any day now--- better to get an early start on it. So I drove to Greenville in eastern North Carolina where the weather was unseasonably cool with light drizzling rain. This is perfect for sitting inside sharing coffee with my mother and growling about the awful weather.

Greenville has East Carolina University with its medical school which attracts thousands of people from all over the world. Most are young with flat abdominal muscles, their life bankrolled by someone else so they are happy and have no mortgage or lower back pain.

Sitting at a stoplight I am struck by the beauty of a girl with long black hair walking along the sidewalk. She has Asian features with high cheekbones and skin which is carefully and frequently moisturized. Her blue shirt clings to her in the misty rain. She travels on long slender legs that were poured into tight fitting white jeans. An elderly man in a grey pin striped business suit holds an umbrella over his head and watches her. The man stares at this young goddess as she walks by him, she nods politely and then suddenly she is gone out of his life forever. He looks a bit wistful. You should not live in a college town when you past the age of fifty unless you are prepared for disappointments and regrets.

My mind ponders disappointments as I pass a golf course now empty in the drizzling rain. Golf is a game of disappointment capable of producing sudden moments of self loathing and thunderous anger that hurls a nine iron into the nearest water hazard. And it’s all done in a beautiful quiet pastoral setting.

But golf is a wonderful benefit to society as it’s ranks are filled with corporate lawyers, politicians and CEO’s who, if they spent their time in the office, just think of all the damage they would do. Therefore municipal golf courses would be a wonderful investment in our future and well being. I am amazed at how much people will pay to go to a place so they can suffer.

I don’t play golf anymore. I dabble in the arts now which gives me all the opportunities to suffer that a man can bear. There is nothing like spending days writing a story that turns out to be a public disappointment or produces little response. You never got off the tee. Then some newbie writes a book, for fun she says, about different shades of grey and masochistic sex and it’s a New York Times best seller. Your wife reads it and one night you find stainless steel handcuffs on the nightstand. You want to say bad things and hurl your pen into a lake.

But travel levels the playing field, available to almost anyone. You sit in a strange city, sip coffee and for a little while you have no past and no responsibilities. You see beautiful people, gain a different perspective on life and acquire fresh ideas. One day we will look back and be amazed at the things we’ve done and experienced if every now and then we have the good sense to flee perfection.