A Bag of Years

 

Off with the old, on with the new. Nature turns the page.

* * *

It’s a quiet Saturday afternoon. I stand on the back patio peeling a last-year’s orange. I watch last-year’s leaves falling effortlessly from the giant water oak overhead. It’s their time to say goodbye. The acorns already have.  

Shards of sunlight filter through the interstices of the overhead branches and cast dark, skeletal shadows of the gnarled and leafless branches above. It’s nature’s pictural postmortem, so to speak. But it’s only temporary.

I’m clueless as to why I find falling leaves interesting. Maybe old age gets sentimental about anything or anybody bidding farewell. It happens every year, like birthdays. And today is my birthday. The years are piling up like so many desiccated leaves littering the driveway.

Once a week our man with his leaf blower comes by and cleans up the mess. He has an industrial strength blower strapped to his back like Rocket Man. It’s so powerful that he levitates. Once he was blown into the anise hedge and the fire department had to extricate him.

We give leaf blowers hell for the noise they create, but we don’t have time, or we’re too lazy, or both, to take the rake and remember the days of ‘when.’

It’s easier to get rid of dead leaves than dead years. Just burn ‘em or compost them. They make good fertilizer from which new growth can emerge. But we’re stuck with old years. What do we do with them?

I’m looking at my bulging bag of years now.  It’s getting pretty full, and heavier by the year. I’m wondering how long I can continue to tote this weighty bag of memories and experiences. 

Some quack scientists aver that memories and experiences actually possess atomic numbers and should occupy a spot in the periodic table. That’s right, they have a specific gravity that can weigh on the mind, conscience and soul. Quite a reach, but then so is comprehending the origins of Covid.       

Still, it’s fun to just dig around in our bag of years and pull out some old memories we can torch, laugh at or cry over, and then toss out like meaningless bag clutter. Like the one about leaves.

Leaves? What are leaves doing in my bag? Apparently, the word ‘torch’ sets off some ancient memory from youth.

In the old days of my childhood things were simpler. We made games out of everything. Even dead leaves. We had time to burn, plus we were bored. My father knew his Tom Sawyer psychology: To get kids to do work, make a game out of it. Then it was fun, not a chore.

“Hey, boys, go play in the leaves. And here are some matches. Be careful,” he’d say. No instructions, just have fun. Ah, yes, unchained. So, we’d rake the leaves into the ditch in big piles. We’d hide in them, or at least thought we were hiding, and pitch acorns at passing cars.

After a while this game would get old. But hey, we had some matches. And ‘careful’ is not a fully developed concept in the minds of young boys. So, we’d torch the leaves like everybody else in the neighborhood and dance around the bonfire like demons. We had no respect unto dead leaves.      

The time gap is short in nature’s transition from winter to spring, from youth to old age. It wastes no time in the conversion from brown to green. The leaves, like years, even look tired as they fall next to the emerging verdant shoots of lilies.  

The transitional dichotomy of the seasons is stark. The two extremes meet in an exchange, a handoff of sorts, a changing of the guard. One dies, another is born. Nature in constant motion.

In its place, almost imperceptible, is a tiny green shoot, a new leaf in the making. Did it push the old one out? Or did the old leaf just finally get tired, give up and decide it’d had enough? After all, it’s the new that converts photosynthesis into energy, not the old.

* * *

Who knows what’s in our bag of years. What to keep, what to trash. But if it gets too bulky, here are two choices:

Herbie Cohen: “Treat life as a game and have fun.” or,

Kinky Friedman: “Blessed is the match that kindles the flame.”

In the meantime, keep stuffing your bag and be proud of its contents. You’ll have to empty it soon enough.

 

Bud Hearn

March 4, 2023

Intimations of Spring…an Odyssey

 

The solar calendar still reads winter. The South Georgia almanac says: “Spring.”

* * *

We’re driving on a sandy dirt road somewhere in Atkinson County, Georgia. No map, no GPS, no hurry.

The morning sun casts long shadows through the oaks. A sack of sausage and biscuits sits on the seat between us. Cups of steaming Starbucks are squeezed between our knees.

Without warning Wayne jams on the brakes of his old red pickup truck. It swerves and skids sideways in the soft sandy backroad. It stops just short of the ditch.

“What the…?” I yell. Tiny drops of coffee slosh on my jeans.

“Look,” he shouts. “There, between the oaks.  See ‘em?”

Barely visible through the thick undergrowth a pair of black, accusatory eyes stare at us. We feel like grave robbers, violating the sanctity of a place occupied by ghosts.

“Let’s check it out,” Wayne says.

Wayne is Wayne Morgan, a noted photographer with a country boy’s eye for the unusual. Slightly off-center myself, we make a perfect pair. We slide out of the truck.

An eerie and windless silence of the timeless place greets us. It seems locked in suspended animation of a forgotten past. We walk cautiously up the overgrown driveway while shards of sunlight warm the forest floor. Steam rises, dissipates and slowly disappears.

A derelict structure emerges. Its boards are blanched from years of neglect and decomposition. Peering from it are two hollow and blackened holes, like empty eye sockets in a bleached skull.  The vision adds surrealism to the marred relic.

Gray beards of Spanish moss descend like a mist from the gnarled limbs of the massive water oaks. The setting evokes a gothic sense of foreboding. We gaze in stunned silence at the scene. Nothing moves.

We’re here by chance. Life led the way. Country dirt roads always lead somewhere, even if to nowhere special. ‘Nowhere special’ is where the exceptional is found. Which is our mission…affirmations of Spring. 

Atkinson County is basically nowhere. Little has happened here since Bill Atkinson was governor in 1894. It’s a perfect place to find genuine evidence of spring.

The artifact we see is a ruined vestige of the tenant farming era. A black, moldy velvet sofa sits on the rotting porch. Beer cans and broken glass surround it. The sofa seems to crawl with parasitic tenants, giving the illusion it’s alive. We walk inside by a sagging screen door hanging by its hinges.

Debris litters the floors. Splintered remnants of wooden furniture lie scattered throughout. Broken glass covers the discolored linoleum. The wallpaper, long since faded and green with mildew, appears to melt from the walls.  Nothing of value remains.

We sift through papers yellowed with age. One is a postcard with palm trees, postmarked Daytona Beach.  It’s addressed to Waldo Winslow, Sandy Bottom, Georgia.

Terse and barely legible from water stains, it reads, “I’m not coming back, Waldo. I’m sick and tired of the cold and picking tobacco and cotton. You can take your 80 acres and…”  Nothing more is legible. It’s signed, “Goodbye, your wife, Yolanda.”

“Can’t much blame her, you?” Wayne says. “Must have been a hard life here.  Heck, those palm trees look inviting to me, too.”

“I guess,” I reply feeling a tinge of sorrow for old Waldo. “Wonder what happened to him?”

Through a shattered kitchen window we see a weathered marble tombstone. It’s half-covered by Carolina jasmine vines. He looks at me, “Waldo’s still here. See?”

We walk down the dark hallway and go outside. I pick up an old Prince Albert tobacco can.  It’s closed tightly.  I pry the top open, look at the contents. 

“Wayne, here’s what we’re looking for, right inside this tobacco can,” I say.

In the sunlight we empty the can. Inside are dried daffodils, like the kind found pressed between pages of old books.

“What do you make of this?” Wayne asks.  But he knows, even as I do.

Waldo had saved some daffodils from another time as a reminder that though winter slays, spring resurrects.  They apparently nurtured his hope for better times, and that his fallow fields would soon burst with new life.

“Guess Yolanda wasn’t convinced,” Wayne says, “They don’t compare to palm trees.”

“Let’s give ‘em back to Waldo,” Wayne says. We scatter them on the sunken earth that held his dust beneath the headstone.

“So long, Waldo,” Wayne says, uttering the shortest eulogy in history. He shoves the Prince Albert can into the back pocket of his jeans. We leave.

Wayne’s Nikon shudder clicks, capturing the moment, and we turn and walk back into today. “What did you see?” I ask.

“Look,” he says. Around the base of that wretched skeleton of a house, yellow blossoms of daffodils were bursting forth in the sunlight. “There’s evidence of Spring,” Wayne says.

 * * *

Wayne grinds the gears and the truck lurches forward, speeding down the dirt road to somewhere. It’s a good day to be alive.

 

 Bud Hearn

February 24, 2023

 

 

The Chinese Spy Balloon Spoof

 

Not since Orson Welles’s radio version of War of the Worlds aired in 1938 has such panic ensued with the sighting of a white Chinese balloon overhead. How do we make sense of it? Read on.  

There it was, for days, visible with the naked eye, this white balloon, a gigantic surveillance eye in the sky, causing wide-spread panic and speculation as to its purpose. Old news now.  

But rumors persist. As it passed over the continental US, people fled to fallout shelters, curling up in fetal positions in basements, hiding under tables and beds and putting their heads between their knees and kissing their tooshes goodbye. So ominous was its presence even hard-core Montanan para-military goons cringed in fear, hiding like marmots for shelter under rocks and crevices.

The devout gathered in cemeteries, waiting for graves to open, speculating as to the time for the promised Rapture of the Redeemed where they’d be reunited in paradise with all those washed in the blood, free from slavery, work, all credit card and student loan debt and where Benevolent mercies flowed like Covid stimulus checks.  

In Washington much confusion reigned as the gravity of the situation griped and quashed the nerve and response fibers of all leadership. There was a great clamor in assembling the think tanks for ‘narratives and conversations’ to quell the restless speculation of the populace. Investigative committees were promised. What did this balloon portend? Was its message a warning, a threat, a joke? Explanations are demanded.

The President was called. “I’ll take care of it,” he says. “I’m busy now.” Such assurances from POTUS frightens the jittery public more than the overhead intruder. Chuck and Hakeem were dispatched to retrieve him.  

After a diligent search in Scranton, he was found in the basement of his beach home, shooting marbles with Hunter and cleaning up loose ends by deleting laptop digital trails while twirling rosary beads to keep the Avenging angel at bay.

Meanwhile the nation continued to speculate on this white balloon, this errant blimp, this silent wandering menace in the sky. Questions without answers breed discontent, fear, panic. The country is on edge, demanding answers. For lack of other options, it was suggested that Blimpken cancel his trip as a show of gall at the invasion of airspace.  

Conversations continue. Shoot it down, some say. But life and limb beneath a wide debris field is untenantable. Besides, China says it’s just a harmless, off-the-leash hot air blimp extracting meteorological data, right? So, what to do remains the dilemma du jour.

Some speculated it could have been dispatched to keep the US honest in its pledge to reduce all CO2 emissions after Kerry demanded more money, money, money at the Davos climate conference. China had heard about the ban on gas stoves but doubted the follow-through. Plus, some speculated it had contracted with Elon to map out all EV charging stations promised in the Inflation Reduction Ruse. Last count there was none.

As we know, blimps and dirigibles are filled with gas, hydrogen or helium. It was perhaps looking for a refueling station, but as it drifted over it bypassed DC since the only gas coming out of that Swamp is methane.  

But when the balloon reached the Carolina low country, things changed. This is Geechee country where Edisto River swamps and azaleas set the ambience for laid-back living and where Yankees and uninvited intruders are seldom met anymore with Dobermans and double barrels. Still, everyone in these parts knows you don’t disturb a Saturday afternoon low country boil, not even with a Beijing blimp.  

But here it is, taking its own sweet time looking for an invitation to land. And true to its creed, the Confederacy lives on, and this balloon will get the same thrashing Ft. Sumter did. Take it out, is the cry.

Memory is still fresh in the die-hard minds of some, and respect is still demanded for the remaining spirit of the Confederacy where the faithful have saved their Confederate sawbucks for the anticipated resurrection of REL. So, with the one missile remaining from the depleted Ukraine drain, the menace disintegrates in a puff of smoke over Myrtle Beach before it can dock for an upcoming election conference with the resident of Mar a Lago.  

But the saga is not over, for speculation continues unabated about the ‘What’ and ‘Why’ of this egregious trespass. After all, America since 1776 has a long history with balloons and bubbles of all sorts, and speculation is the continued favored gold rush of many seekers of instant wealth. Some win, most lose, others beg for the dole. Until the balloon pops.       

Let’s move on from the white Chinese balloon diversion and the name calling and not get caught up in the impending explosion of the debt ceiling. That balloon will burst on its own. Let’s get down to business and real speculation: will it be the Chiefs or the Eagles, Mahomes or Hurts?

Buy the ticket, take the ride. Put up or shut up.

 

Bud Hearn

February 9, 2023         

 

 

 

 

Against the Wind…See Dick Run

 

“I’m older now but still runnin’ against the wind, against the wind.”   Bob Seger lyrics

 

* * *

 It’s mid-January already. We’re running full throttle ahead, merging into the fast lane of 2023 where we got off a few days ago.

Today I’m busy purging the over-stuffed library in our home. Books everywhere, too many books, books never read, never to be read. Wisdom wasted, so little time. New rule: buy a book, shed a book.

Stuffed third-tier back in the shelves are my ancient high school yearbooks. Inside the 1958 one are some crinkled pages of Fun With Dick and Jane. Remember it? It was written in the 1930’s by Dr. Bill Gray, a man who apparently had some psychic foresight..

See Dick Run may be some of the first words many of us read in the first grade. Dick was joined in life by Jane, Spot, Tim, Puff, Mom and Dad. Flipping back through the pages, I believe Dr. Gray used ‘Dick’ in a metaphorical sense for ‘men.’ Looking at it in this way, it’s a relevant reader today.

I wonder why he chose ‘run’ as the active verb? Why not see Dick sit, work, hide, seek, eat, talk, walk, shop, etc. I think he was preparing Dick for his life’s journey: running. And if Dick were symbolic of our culture today, he’d be a running fool.

Take a look at Dick’s journey:

See Dick Run: helter-skelter for fun.

See Dick Compete: college, job market.

See Dick Balance: a check book, a career, a family…run faster, Dick.

See Dick Exercise: more running, faster, keep the heart fit.

See Dick Borrow: chasing success.

See Dick Buy: cars, houses, vacations, stuff…buy, buy, buy.

See Dick Panic: not enough, not enough…run, run, run.

See Dick Age: the ‘also-ran’ generation.    

See Dick Retire: but how, where? He looks, he looks.   

Dick’s dog, Spot, ran also, chasing his tail but never catching it. Likewise, so did the Prideful Tigers in Helen Bannerman’s tale of Little Black Sambo, written in 1899. We don’t know what became of Spot. But the Tigers ran so fast in a circle they became a pool of butter and spread on the pancakes Sambo ate. Some stories have happy endings. But somewhere Spot is still running.

Poor Dick. He finds that Time is running, too, and he’s about to run out of it. The world of ‘what-if, not-enough, if-only’ gets in the way of retirement. Everything’s expensive, college for kids vaporized his home equity, Visa maxed out and his 401K has that lean and hungry look.

Dick has been running so long he doesn’t know another lifestyle. In desperation he changes Parties and votes Democrat, where the perennial promise of Redistribution is his last hope. In utter frustration he sighs, “Let our children run for a while; I’m out of gas.”

In the background Jackson Brown is singing on YouTube, “Running on empty, running blind; running into the sun but I’m running behind.” Dick replays the video, glad he’s not alone.

Now, See Dick Quit. He sits with a Bud Lite in the declining rays of a Florida sunset in Garden Hills Retirement Village, reading the obits. The whole miserable episode of running becomes clear in his mind. But it’s too late to do much about it.  Remorse sets in.

He commiserates with the other Shuffleboard Unfortunates how the deck was stacked against them. The Biblical Job comes to mind and he sighs, “I should have run faster when I could.” His lamentations blend with the collective laments of his companions.

Now, See Dick Think. In a life’s retrospective he wonders, “What kind of ending is this for a man who has run all his life?” He wants his epitaph to be the famous words of Joe Louis: “He can run, but he can’t hide.” Like Dick, Billy Conn lost that heavyweight fight, remember?

Some questions remain unanswered in the Dick and Jane primer, like, “What became of Jane?” We can only speculate. But my guess is that she got married, pregnant, had a lot of little Dicks and Janes and suffered right along with her husband (or husbands) …cooking, cleaning, washing, nursing, enduring and finally getting a night job at Waffle House. Speculation leads down dark alleys.

We like closure with fairy-tale endings like, “And they all lived happily ever after.” Dr. Gray allows us the opportunity to complete the sequels. How would we write our generation’s final version? Somehow, I suspect it might not be a book for first graders.

* * *

Keep on running while you can. You may not get there before the rest of us, but it will do wonders for orthopedic surgeons. “Hey Jane, another Bud, please. Thanks.”

 

Bud Hearn

January 16, 2023   

 

 

A New Mosaic

 

“To every thing there is a season, and a time for every purpose under the heaven.”

Ecclesiastes 3:1 

* * *

 The words above were written sometime in the 10^th Century BC by King Solomon, supposedly the wisest man who ever lived, a claim that might be disputed by certain latter-day politicians. But it’s a good theme to consider as we enter a new year.

We’re now nine days into it, wondering how to bring closure to the old one and figure out where we go in this new one. We’ll all be looking for another bite at the apple, that second chance at the trough, to maybe try to ‘get it right,’ lay the past behind and begin with a new slate of opportunities.

But we have to get to work quickly because euphoria and good intentions have a short shelf life. They tend to fade into inertia after crossing the threshold of another year. Reality and routine replace our best intentions.

Ah, yes, routine, that beaten path of habit, the tyranny of the urgent. We sometimes curse having to plow the same old row of daily duty. But routine is not a curse inflicted upon us. It often saves us from ourselves and our natural tendencies to go off the reservation fully loaded but half-cocked.

It also stifles instant gratification. It replaces it with delayed gratification, our today’s déjà vu, as we look at unwashed dishes, unpaid bills or the multiple other ‘must-do’s’ left hanging.  

This morning I decide to take Scripture to heart and have coffee with the jigsaw puzzle while contemplating the season and time, perhaps get a glimpse of the future. I might have had better luck at tarot cards or reading tea leaves as to glean any direction or wisdom from this puzzle.

I remember when we poured it out of the box. Hundreds of small, odd-shaped pieces tumble on the table. We’re excited to get to work, searching first for the corners, then the margins and building from there. You might say we were trying to form some structure to the mess lying in front of us.

Maybe it’s the caffeine or my natural tendency to metaphorize such a jumbled hodge-podge of incongruent parts, but it sets my mind in motion. It seems to resemble the loose, disconnected hanging chads and details of last year that beg reconciliation or put out to pasture.

Now looking back won’t solve anything, but maybe it might make some things clear when we consider the random bits and pieces of last year. I know that’s a reach for lesser IQ’s, but there were some things that just didn’t turn out right, things that maybe could have been done better or smarter, like the wisdom my octogenarian friend gained from falling off a ladder.

Maybe some of you did some deep retrospective thinking, you know the kind that ends up writing resolutions and makes promises, promises that this is finally the year you’ll get it right. But after sufficient mental flagellation, you know perfection is not possible with humans. You soon rip up the list and move on.

So here we are, beginning a pristine new year still blended with the details of the last one.  Let’s be hopeful. And like the puzzle, we must begin somewhere, one piece at a time. The puzzle’s mosaic always begins like a chaotic mess, but with patience and time the structure builds and a new mosaic emerges.

* * *

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.”  Take it to heart, lighten up, we’ll get another bite at the apple. God remembers Eden and will see to it.

Happy New Year from us at The Weakly Post. Stay in touch.

 

Bud Hearn

January 9, 2023