Digressions of a Dilettante

Digressions of a Dilettante
Vignettes of Inanity by Bud Hearn

Thursday, April 19, 2012

On the Fence


“Did you ever have to finally decide, say yes to one and leave the other behind, it’s not always easy, it’s not always kind, did you ever have to make up your mind?”
Lovin’ Spoonful

Every morning over coffee we face the same dilemma…making a decision. So many questions, so few answers. But one question in particular looms large. We deal with it daily.

Sooner or later she hurls The question from her end of the table. Everyday. Without failure. It’s always the same. I know it’s coming. I give her a head fake. It sails on by. I hide behind my barrier, the newspaper, pretending to read.

She likes watching the morning news on TV. I pull the same tricks on her that she does on me. “What do You think would be a….” She cuts me off. “Shhhh, I’m watching the news.” A temporary reprieve.

At a commercial break she asks The question again. I offer up, “Uh, I’m thinking.” That buys me another five minutes. But I know it’s coming again. I wait. I read. I buy more time.

Can you for once answer the question?” she asks. “Just a minute,” I say. Then I sling a question back at her. “What do you think of our local county commissioners?” The question momentarily stumps her.

“Who cares?” she says. “We have only one vote.” A crack in the door opens. I ask her which candidates she prefers. Inane questions are diversionary tactics. She takes the bait, launches into a discursive on the low moral character of all politicians. It buys me ten more minutes.

Wow! Did you see that Dick Clark died?” I ask. Her response is quick. “You’re about to suffer a similar fate.” The discussion is turning viral.

“Listen to me for once,” she says. “Focus. I need an answer.”

I fidget, set the paper down, pretend to think. I make facial expressions that indicate I’m giving the question my utmost consideration. I cock my head, scrunch up my forehead and grimace. I fiddle with my navel and finally scratch my head. I bite my lower lip and snarl like Elvis.

“Well?” she says. I take out my sword and jab her with another question. “Have the dogs been out?” She flicks off the TV. “I know your game, big boy.” she says. “You do it every time. Your digressions are cheap tricks to avoid making a decision. But today, Mr. Slick, you’re about to reap the whirlwind.”

Trapped. I know what being backed into a corner feels like. I live there. It’s serious now. All corners are serious business. “OK,” I say. “I feel your pain. It’s tough to decide this every day.” I try the old ‘compliment-her’ routine. It was a favorite of the three Stooges. It worked today about as well for me as it did for them.

My lips drip with honey as I compliment her on the wonderful job she’s done in deciding this question in the past without my help. It buys me nothing. I try a smile. I utter meekly, “Well, what do you think we should do?” Wrong question. Her palm slams the table. My teeth rattle. The dogs hide.

“My patience is getting short,” she says. “Decide now!”

I push my luck. I roll out the old standby as a last resort. “Sweetie, whatever you decide suits me.” My regret cannot retrieve the utterance as it zings from my lips. I curse my Id. It laughs at my predicament.

Her silence stuns me. I discover old standbys are like yesterdays girlfriends…old, outdated and useless. My ‘last resort’ is about as thin as the gold in a Saturday night wedding ring.

I sit on my fence and wonder: Why does the question, What do you want for dinner?” always provoke such extreme reactions.

That’s it, I’ve had it,” she retorts. She storms from the room, leaving me with the remains of her coffee. It’s warm and sweet as it drips from my face onto the newspaper.

Men just don’t get it, do they?

Bud Hearn
April 19, 2012




Thursday, April 12, 2012

Honey and Sweetie


The Homeowners Association crammed a tennis court behind our former home. It was a nuisance. We cursed it, until ‘they’ began to practice tennis every Saturday morning. Like a Jersey Shore series, it became a stage and a source of singular delight.

‘They’ were a middle-aged couple, probably married. I say ‘probably,’ because of their terms of endearment. They never called one another by given names. She called him ‘Sweetie.’ His love-note was ‘Honey.’ Married couples are weird this way. It was just too sicky-sweet. We knew the ending would be bitter as gall.

Whomp. “Good shot, Honey,” he yells. Whomp. “Not so hard, Sweetie,” she responds. Back and forth it goes. Honey this, Sweetie that. They drag out the nicknames, like, Honeeeeey and Sweetieeeeee. The emphasis is on the last syllable. Nauseating. The minutes wear on.

Things soon get interesting. Whack. She slams a wild shot. “Concentrate, Honey,” he says. “Ok, Sweetie,” she responds. Her voice is a little testy. Slap. The ball hits the net. “Quit slicing. Are you Billie Jean?” he says. Impatience creeps into his voice. We take note. The saccharin appellations are turning sour.

Charge the ball, Honey,” he barks. The condescension comes through. “Then quit those stupid lobs, Sweetie,” she retorts. A hard edge sounds in her voice. “Honey, keep your eyes on the ball, alright-already,” he coaches. She stops in mid-court. “I’m doing my best, Sweetie,” she fires back. Ah, the session is heating up nicely. Mayhem will soon arrive.

There’s a subtlety in the use of pet names. It all hinges on the emphasis of the syllable. The New Jersey couple is a case study of the evolutionary process of syrupy sobriquets gone sour. Their emphasis is now on the first syllables, like HONey, and SWEEtie. The names have morphed into noms de guerre. The harsh tones are shoving them to the brink of the abyss. Our nerves tingle with the tension.

We all use special cuddly-bunny names for our friends, lovers, spouses and animals. The list is endless. It has no relationship to reality. For example, I sometimes call my dog ‘Snowflake.’ He has wised up, knowing that a bath is coming. One of my favorites is ‘Sweet Lips,’ though the recipient is often just the opposite. Name withheld.

A friend calls her husband ‘Babe.’ What kind of name is this for a man? It’s less descriptive than it is a disguise. Maybe there’s something to hide. Could he be a cross-dresser? What do I know? Reality is irrelevant.

Sometimes pseudonyms can backfire. Take the common use of ‘Hon.’ It’s ‘Honey-gone-south,’ a favorite of waitresses. Its use is prevalent in cheap diners and hash-brown joints. I once made a mistake by using it in calling for my wife. Some lessons are only learned by experience.

Labels can become self-fulfilling prophesy. I once dated a girl named Becky. She had an affinity for all things sweet. I called her Becky-pie. She endured it at first. Later she embraced it. She became the Betty Crocker Cook of the Year in Mississippi. She opened a pie factory, got rich and now competes with Mrs. Smith’s apple pie. She owes me!

Over-use of name-substitutes causes the loss of their exclusivity. It can backfire on us. ‘Baby’ is one of these. Everybody uses it. My wife discovered this when I called the Tax Assessor ‘Baby.’ It’s no longer in my vocabulary.

I asked friends for some of their favorite love-names. Here are a few: Jelly-roll, Prune-cake, Apple-dumpling, Poo-bear, Sweet-cake and some just too salacious to mention. The most used were, of course, Mama and Daddy.

A friend called her husband ‘Darling’ for years. I asked her how she could be so sweet after so many years of marriage. She said, “Simple. I’ve called him this for so long I can’t remember the crusty old dirt-bag’s name.” Frightening.

Back to the NJ couple. Things went sideways for them one Saturday. They played tennis too long. The shouting turned nasty. I recall the arrival of an ambulance and her standing over his comatose body with a broken racket. You can draw your own conclusions. As for me, I conclude golf with my spouse is definitely out. Bridge is a safer substitute.

I hear my wife calling now, “Angel-puff, I need you.” A prophesy? Nah…it’s just going to be a very long day!

Bud Hearn
April 12, 2012

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Fear and Great Joy


And they departed quickly from the sepulcher with fear and great joy, and did run to bring his disciples word.” Matthew 28:8

On Sunday the Christian Church celebrates Easter. Choirs will resurrect George Frideric Handel’s oratorio, Messiah. It concludes a week filled with drama, pomp, passion and re-enactments of the Biblical events surrounding the death and resurrection of Jesus. It’s the great cathedral of Christian truth, the tallest spire of divine revelation.

All four synoptic Gospels recount the events surrounding the discovery of the empty tomb. Details vary. But in essence, they’re too similar to dismiss their credibility. In the excerpt cited above, only Matthew reports the occurrence in a special way…the phenomenon of an earthquake. He writes:

And, behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it.” 28: 2

I’ve never experienced an earthquake. Those who have report there’s a rumble, things wobble, trees sway and swing, houses vibrate, the ground moves, shifting underfoot. The ground yawns, splits open, swallows houses, crumbles buildings. They say the ground bubbles, roads become rubber. The fear is terrifying. It’s beyond the control of humans. Perhaps this is what the first visitors to Jesus’ tomb experienced.

Yes, women were the first there. Mary Magdalene, another Mary and other women. To add incredulity to it, Mary Magdalene was the one from whom Jesus had cast seven demons. Who would believe her account? Go figure. They discovered the abandoned grave and received instructions from the angel who waited there. And where were the disciples of Jesus? Those bold, fearless men? Why, they were huddled together and holed up in some safe-house, quaking in their sandals.

So here we have it…a crowd of mourning women, an earthquake, a huge stone miraculously rolled away, an empty sepulcher, an angel that shone like lightening, and a tale too incredible to comprehend. The women, upon receiving the angel’s mandate, “…departed quickly…with fear and great joy.” How would we react?

Fear and great joy…ruling emotions of the human makeup. Who has not feared? Or had great joy? They’re obverse sides of the same coin. Yet, how can they co-exist? Which one rules? Weekly TV reality shows like Survivor and Fear Factor permeate our culture. They’re substitutionary escapes, producing cheap, vicarious thrills for entertainment, caricatures of reality for our amusement. They leave us where they find us…nothing’s changed. We become immune to them. But Easter occurs only once each year. It comes with a real power. It transcends fear and replaces it with great joy. It’s the Real Deal !

The ‘great-joy’ part of the equation is what trumps fear. It has as its companion the prospect of Hope, the lack of which makes life a miserable endurance. Fear backs us up in a cave…hope flings the door wide open, inspires us, affirms the fact that miracles of resurrection can, and do, occur every minute of life.

Great joy is the ruling emotion as we depart our places of worship on Easter. The cross is no longer draped in purple…it sprouts flowers, sparkles with the Son’s reflection and is symbolic of new life. Hope is our ruling disposition. It affirms that the faith we have in a risen Savior is, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, sufficient to overcome the doubts and the earthquakes of life.

Like the women at the first Easter, may we run forth likewise on Sunday, shouting the Hallelujah Chorus and spreading the good news…“He is risen indeed!”

Bud Hearn
April 5, 2012