Digressions of a Dilettante

Digressions of a Dilettante
Vignettes of Inanity by Bud Hearn

Friday, September 26, 2014

Banned from the Junior League


In the South, nothing scores higher on the social register for women than the Association of Junior Leagues International, or AJLI. Banishment from its ranks is unthinkable. But there are options…

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This year marks the anniversary debut of Margaret Mitchell’s acclaimed book, Gone with the Wind. Its enduring contribution to the South lies in the fact that Southerners no longer name their children Ulysses and Sherman.

The year was 1936. The GWTW novel made its way into a movie, grossing more revenue than any other flick after adjusting for inflation. This acronym should not be confused with LGBT, another novel way to gross big dollars from the public treasury.

Everything is adjusted for inflation now. For example, my brand new red Pontiac Coupe cost $2,400 in 1962, a small fortune then. Today it won’t even buy a weekend trip to Panama City. The dollar’s value has GWTW also.

Margaret Mitchell was a wild and unrestrained member of the Atlanta Junior League. A hoity-toity charity ball was held at the PDC, a swanky private country club living on the fumes of the final days of finger bowls. She and a drunken Frenchman with a thin mustache shocked the starchy crowd with a erotic dance imported straight from the streets of Paris. The JL went ballistic and booted her.

Some years later she was run down by a car while crossing Peachtree Street. It’s rumored that a hit man was employed to salvage the reputation of the JL suffered by Mitchell’s disgusting display of social impropriety. The AJLI is a savage and vicious crowd. Don’t mess with it.

The tragic event remains unsolved. Some allege that a money trail led to the local chapter of AAONYMS, an august group of the Ancient Arabic of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, aka Shriners. Anything’s possible. Aside from being notoriously bad drivers, and some say big boozers, they create spectacles by wearing comical red fezzes and driving midget cars madly down Main Streets.

But women don’t have a lock on the elegant social organizations. Men have their own. Many are not eleemosynary. Some exist for delusionary purposes, like celebrating the primacy of male ego. Rotarians were once a venerable group. Alas, due to its revised by-laws, probation of crude jokes and gender slurs has rendered it impotent. Co-ed crowds are not totally integrated.

Men begin their concept of social order in college fraternities, a legacy of debauchery left behind by the Greeks. This self-elevated concept of immutable brotherhood still consists principally of beer orgies, tailgate parties and black marbles. Hazing is encouraged. Survival is iffy. Expulsion is possible only by revealing the secret handshake.

My fraternity’s handshake was envisioned by R.E. “Hand Jive” Lee. It involved a bone-crushing grip (a vestige of declining manhood), a twist of the palms, a locking of index fingers and ending with a fist bump. A certain effete frat house also used a handshake. Brothers shake and simultaneously tickle the palm of the other with an index finger. It’s reputed to have carnal implications.

After college, little changed. Daughters ransacked their fathers’ pension funds and became debutants, the feeder system for membership in the JL. Frat boys continued unabatedly their post-graduate antics.

One pompous fraternity formed a society known as ‘The Nooners.’ My post-grad brothers, not to be outdone, assembled a motley group known as ‘The Loose Screws.’ These secret societies were organized for continuation of leftover adolescent expressions and hyperbolic fabrications.

Unfortunately, neither group grasped the meaning of the French term, double entendre, a word grouping that ascribes double meanings to things. In the ‘60’s the French language wasn’t popular. Box wine didn’t score high marks. French was thought to be a variant of Pig Latin that originated at the University of Alabama after the Civil War.

The double entendre had dyslexic tendencies and soon became the name of a powerful libation, the Double Intender. It’s concocted with Wild Turkey bourbon, root beer and Red Bull. In sufficient quantities it trashes inhibitions, but guarantees the reward of seeing double and thinking single. Regrettably, the ‘Nooners’ and the ‘Loose Screws’ remain banned from debutant balls but well received in tattoo parlors.

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Things keep changing. Margaret has joined her manuscript, GWTW. Social mores are defined by airline passengers. Banishment from the Junior League is no longer a stigma, but is a shoe-in for women for membership in the AMVETS Ladies Auxiliary.

Separate but equal covers a wide landscape…


Friday, September 19, 2014

Of Brains and Sponges


Brains and sponges have something in common: they require squeezing on a regular basis to eliminate the grease and grime of life. The preacher gave mine a big squeeze… what oozed out was ugly!

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Sponges are simple, utilitarian tools. Our household has lots of them. Blue ones mostly. They’re used for cleaning dirty dishes, a simple task requiring little brain function, which explains why I’m assigned the nightly task. Such cognitive functions rank on the level of crunching cockroaches.

She cooks, I clean, a workable division of labor. She once suggested I consider a more creative role, like reading a recipe and following directions. It was an ill-conceived experiment. Marital bliss is higher priority. Besides, meat cleavers are simply overkill for mincing garlic cloves.

Cleaning the kitchen relieves my mind of the day’s accumulation of crap…personal insults, injustices and outright rejections that flesh is heir to. My weapon of choice is the long-handled scrub brush, not a soggy sponge.

A bloated blue sponge floating around arrogantly in a sudsy sink of dull dishwater is repugnant. In minutes my hands age years by dipping them in foul, chemically-laced water. Manly attire does not consist in wearing aprons and elbow-length yellow rubber gloves.

There’s a protocol to proper dishwashing. Women write the instruction manual. What’s it to a man if an occasional dried rice kernel or two remains stuck to the wall of a supposedly washed pot. No big deal.

Creek banks and back seats are where young boys learn many of life’s lessons. The brains of young boys are like sponges, absorbent and adaptive. The idea of acceptable cleanliness of cooking utensils was formed on camp-outs and fishing expeditions.

Grease germs that dared to dangle in a pan after frying fish or bacon were exterminated by multiple tortures. Baptism by fire was the preferred method. After that, a wad of swamp mud rubbed off the remainder, followed by a refreshing dip in whatever water was handy.

Alas, we have progressed beyond mud and fire. Now we support the detergent industry. It’s more refined says the Kitchen Queen, who inspects everything under the glare of a harsh halogen spotlight. Re-washing is frequent.

After washing, my tendency is to pick up the sodden sponge with tongs and fling it into the dishwasher to decompose along with the other germs. But Madame Decorum demands it be rinsed and squeezed, rinsed and squeezed, until all soaked-up grime and remnants of its day be removed. It’s a timely and laborious process.

After hours of rinsing and squeezing, the poor sponge is again healthy. Being now an empty receptacle, it’s ready to receive some more dirt from tomorrow’s duty. That’s when my brain spoke.

Hey, dummy, give me a big squeeze. Learn the parable of the sponge.”

Does your brain speak to you? It’s the first time I’ve heard mine speak. It’s important to answer your brain. I did.

I didn’t know you needed a squeeze. Have you been washing dirty dishes lately?” I laughed.

What’s so funny, wise guy? I wash your dirty dishes every second of the day, you ingrate. I’m bursting with your debris. Squeeze some of it out, you glutton.” Brain-talk is serious business.

No way. I relish the rubbish of my past. It defines me. I carry it everywhere. Thanks for taking good care of it. It’s my security blanket. To squeeze it out would make me an empty vessel. More demons might move in and occupy your empty cerebral gray matter.”

Listen up, you idiot. When you were a kid you craved apple sauce. Remember how you sponged off your brother’s plate and ate his? And your daddy force fed you the whole jar? How did you feel?” Brains might seem like sieves, but they forget nothing.

I remember. I gagged. It ran out of my nose and ears. I hate apples to this day. I get it. You’re a sponge. No more room to absorb anything. Right?”

You’re a slow learner, Einstein. Call preacher Steve. Tell him you’ve decided to repent and need a big washing in the baptismal font. That’ll do the job. I’ll be good as new, and so will you.”

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As for brains and sponges, dishwashing will never be the same….

Bud Hearn
September 19, 2014

Friday, September 5, 2014

Inspiration


If inspiration comes in spurts, mine has sputtered out. The dreaded ‘writer’s block’ has filled the vacuum. Ideas are harder to find than hen’s teeth.

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I blame it on Labor Day, that self-indulgent holiday, inappropriately named, but a novel concept for the vices of eating, entertainment and evasion. Complicity with the trio was cause for the downfall.

My daughter is an artist. She’s familiar with the illusionary Inspiration Muse, that fickle Siren who’s here today, gone tomorrow, taking all creativity with her. I call her for advice.

“Honey, can you arrange for an essence-stick séance? My Muse has abandoned me. How can I get her to return?"

What’s the problem, dad?” she asks.

I need inspiration. My ideas have dried up, the concepts are boring claptrap, and the news is senseless fodder. I’m desperate for content. Any thoughts?”

Have you tried pound cake and ice cream?” She’s serious.

Will that work?” I ask.

Yes, definitely. Spike it with a hardy shot of brandy and drizzle a lot of extra sugar on top. Then follow Thomas Wolfe’s lead and write naked on top of the refrigerator. Give it a shot.” She laughs.

Get serious. I’m on the edge of a deadline abyss.”

Pop, use your imagination. Works every time. Concentrate on love, on romance, assuming you can remember that far back. Besides, there’s a full moon tonight. Go take a walk on the beach, meditate on some well-marinated romantic memories. That’ll resurrect your mercurial Muse.”

Meditate on love and romance? Interesting. Why not? Nothing else is working.

The shore is as dark and empty as my inspiration. Apparently no one else concentrates on love and romance at this hour. The tide is low, the sea is calm. A slight breeze tickles the tiny waves as they slide ashore. The moon’s reflection makes the water alive. It moves with an eerie cadence. I focus on love.

A vision materializes. A fraternity party, 1963. A summer night, same moon, another beach. Large secluded dunes beckon. A blonde, a blanket. Innocence is screaming to become experience for two naïve college kids. Imagine it’s you.

You hold hands, talk of love. At nineteen, your knowledge of romance is shallow. But not the feelings. Your hearts beat fast. You gaze at the moonlit waters, feel the tender breeze. A brief silence full of possibilities descends. You whisper to her, “Do you have the same feeling I do?”

She squirms restlessly. Without hesitation she answers excitedly, “Yes! Yes!! Yes!!! I think ants are crawling on me.” The sacred moment vanishes.

You shake the blanket and retreat to the car. Innocence goes home alone that night, frustrated but hopeful for another opportunity.

Perhaps you remember a certain night in the mountains. Frosty air. Log cabin. Late fall. Leaves falling. No children. Inside candle flames dance on the walls. The fire is a pile of glowing orange embers. You both nuzzle closely on the sofa, mesmerized by the ambience and possibilities in this romantic moment.

You gaze into each other’s eyes. They reflect the flickering flames. You speak softly into her ear, “Are you thinking the same thing I am?” She sighs, and answers, “I was thinking that I forgot to change the cat litter.”

So much for fires, you think. You go outside, fire up the limp, half-smoked cigar you left lying on the rocking chair and ponder your golf game.

Weddings produce sacred moments. Perhaps you recall the one when you and she, both warm with champagne, dance until midnight? The band is playing “Fly Me to the Moon.” You hold each other closely. Her hand gently caresses your neck. Your arm hugs her waist tightly. You tingle with excitement.

In this rapturous moment you whisper with an impish grin, “Honey, I’m having thoughts of romance. What are you thinking?”

She kisses you on the cheek and replies, “I was thinking how many thank you notes this bride will have to write.” Your moon flight is delayed again. You retreat to the bar with the other guys who have similar stories to tell.

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If there is a connection between inspiration and romance, perhaps it’s more like the triumph of hope over the reality of expectation. Keep looking!

Bud Hearn
September 5, 2014