Bits and Pieces

Well, here we are, about to shut the door on yet another year. When the curtain falls, when the shouts, applause, laments and music of the year-end fade into a distant echo, what’s left? You’ll find it lying there, scattered on the floor of yesterdays, the bits and pieces of it all.

**********

Christmas is unlike other seasons. It begins months in advance, stoking the fires of preparation. We do the obligatory things, following the family traditions and sometimes creating some new ones.

We rummage through the closets and unbox Christmas for another year. We wonder if the song’s lines are true, that God and sinners have reconciled in their boxed storage throughout the year. Then we assemble the decorative trappings and symbols of the mysterious advent—angels, stars, lights, music, wreaths, candles and a tree and put it into some household order as best we can.

And then, before we know it, it’s all over. We look around wondering what remains after being smothered by another year of record online acquisitions. We have again filled the coffers of colossal consumerism and shared a collective spirit of secular celebration mixed with enough religious infusions to justify it all.

We bid the mythical Santa goodbye amid the lingering leftovers of pagan bonfires of the Winter Solstice at Stonehenge and tally up the toll on our credit cards. The bits and pieces add up. Budgets? Really? It’s Christmas.

Like the failed Starliner rocket last week, we see Santa’s jet trails backtracking to the North Pole where Russia and China grapple for geopolitical dominance on the frigid ice wasteland atop our nuclear submarines. Santa’s igloo is atop a time bomb. He’d do well to relocate to a better address.

In the DMZ of time between Christmas and New Year’s Eve celebrations a strange quiet descends about us. Why hurry now? No deadlines, just waiting for the midnight hour to arrive and flip the calendars to 2020 and enjoy the reality show of political intrigue that will resume unabated with new vigor and vitriol. Congress has dug a deep hole for itself. Maybe it will crawl in it.

But it’s nice, this waiting period of a few days. After the cleanup of the clutter we have created in the preceding 360 days past, it’s nice to relax, sipping on the remains of some Evan Williams eggnog, sufficiently infused to promote the surety of a nap.

And when we nap, will we dream? And if so, will our dreams synthesize the bits and pieces of the fading year into something articulate? How will it compartmentalize our hopes, our fears, our heartbreaks, our joys; the realizations, the over-reaches, the under-reaches, the blotched plans, the successful ones? What mosaic will emerge?

In these intervening mornings, I find the coffee early before the household is awake. I like to sit and gaze at the Christmas tree, its limbs now bowing from the weight of decorations and its needles, like the hairs of our hound dog, falling profusely to the floor. I feel a twinge of its burden. Its beauty is past, its duty is done. Recycling awaits.

Sitting there in the quiet of the pre-dawn hour, something dawns on me that I can only sense, something I cannot know in any other way. It’s not the end of something old, but the continuum of all things new. It is the mysterious essence of Christmas that lingers long after the celebrations are past. Like a new-born baby, it’s a new moment, a new year full of surprises to enjoy.

Longfellow’s lines sum it up well:

“When I compare
What I have lost with what I have gained,
What I have missed with what I have attained,
Little room do I find for pride.

I am aware
How many days have been idly spent;
How like an arrow the good intent
Has fallen short or been turned aside.

But who shall dare
To measure loss and gain in this wise?
Defeat may be victory in disguise;
The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide.”

***********

Bits and pieces of life…what glorious and beautiful mosaics we are creating.

Happy New Year




Bud Hearn
December 27, 2019

Waiting in Line

It’s a week before Christmas. I’m standing in line at the post office, waiting. I’m not alone. Others stand silently in a long queue that snakes its way outside. They wait, too.

It’s an understatement to say Americans enjoy waiting in line anywhere. Or, for that matter, waiting for anything. We’re used to instantaneous fulfillment that technology has blessed us with.

Thank you, microchip, Amazon, Google. We praise you. You’ve rescued us from hours of tedium and wasted time waiting in lines like this. But like any other saving grace, your salvation has come with a cost—in this case the loss of human interaction.

Not that anyone would choose to participate voluntarily in a slow-moving line of impatient people. And at this hour, who’s interested in striking up conversation with strangers? We have things to do, places to go. Our calendars are crammed with do, do, do. We have no time.

Here in the dimly-lit corridor the ‘line-waiters’ lean against walls and windows; some sport white cords that dangle from their ears. Some faces bear looks of boredom and mild impatience. Some even appear to have been lobotomized. Their Christmas expressions are elsewhere. Waiting in lines can do this.

The line-standers divert attention and eye contact by fiddling with iPhones, picking at their nails or examining their shoes or the tiles on the floor. Anything to appear disinterested. It’s like being part of a crowd trapped in an elevator. Nobody talks. Except me.

A lady stands nearby. Not too close, mind you. Americans covet space, their personal space. Proximity promotes a negative energy field that prompts, “Back off, buster, you’re too close.”

I cheerfully offer up this week’s ice-breaker, “Merry Christmas.” I exclaim it with gusto as if I were Santa himself. I omit the ‘ho, ho, ho’ part since it has other connotations these days. Heads turn. The silence is broken. Movement occurs. People shuffle, change positions. One might think I’d woken up a corpse.

She returns the greeting. I ask why she’s focused so intently on the cell. I expect a reply like, “None of your business, creep.” But no, she shows me photos of her grandbaby being held in her arms. A big smile follows. Who can resist smiling at the sight of a tiny, new-born baby that’s wrapped in red ribbon?

Then a strange thing happens. Others waiting in line want to take a peek. A spirit begins to arouse the lethargic line. Exclamations of “How beautiful, a wonderful Christmas gift, so sweet, how blessed” and so on. You’d think this is the first time people had ever seen a baby.

Slowly the line creeps forward, packages are retrieved, some are sent. Christmas stamps are purchased and faces smile again as they leave. Soon I’m burdened with boxes of my own, courtesy of an Amazon Fulfillment Center. A gentleman steps out of line and opens the door for me. Ah, the spirit of Christmas is alive indeed.

Lines are here to stay. So is waiting. Car pool lines, TSA lines, check-out lines, check-in lines, doctor’s lines, lines to greet the preacher, lines at the grocery store and traffic lines. We’re trapped in lines.

Yet, some lines can have positive effects, sort of like adult time-out. No rush, no auto, no danger. Nerves relax. Blood pressure drops. Noise abates, and we regain the serenity of our own souls.

You might find it odd, but some of my most favorite ‘lines’ are found in poetry, music and scripture. Some are long, move slowly. Others are short, move quickly. But my mind never objects to pausing and waiting, and letting the movement of words and notes take me where they will.

This Christmas I am waiting in the music line of “This Christmastide,” a beautifully, haunting tune with lines like this:

“From a simple ox’s stall came the greatest gift of all.
Truth and love and hope abide this Christmastide, this Christmastide.”

I’d be pleased to have you join me for a few moments waiting in these lines authored by the prophet Isaiah:

“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”

Some lines are well worth waiting in. Thank you for waiting in mine. Merry Christmas.


Bud Hearn
December 20, 2019

Just Right

“The coffee was hotter and blacker than the sins of the devil himself. But it tasted just right, you might say.” Louis L’Amour

**********

Life demands verbal responses. The choices are many, from the crude to the superlative. Finding the appropriate middle ground is a challenge. ‘Just right’ might be the perfect choice for you. It was for Goldilocks in her choice of beds, you know.

‘Just right’ is one of those colloquialisms that just doesn’t beat around the bush but hits it head on. What else defines everything and yet nothing at all? It’s on par with the ‘It is what it is’ rebuttal to anything defying explanation. You can’t go wrong dropping this idiom.

‘Perfect’ is its high-brow first cousin. It walks a tight, narrow line while ‘just right’ is a wide-open DMZ between opposing choices. It provides a lot more wiggle room and doesn’t box us in. After all, what’s perfect in this life anyway?

Even Plato, now with us only as a marble-busted Greek, knew this. He got tired of his girlfriend complaining that his dish washing wasn’t perfect. So he came up with his Theory of Forms. Pure genius. It’s as viable an escape hatch today as it was then.

It’s a simple philosophy that nullifies even the possibility of perfection. It’s only in the ethereal world where perfect patterns exist. Not here. Everything on this planet is just an imperfect copy of those perfect patterns. Look in the mirror. The reflection you see will affirm all contrary delusions.

My friend George brought the concept of ‘just right’ down to earth. He said a fellow named Philo once worked for him. Philo liked his whiskey. After finishing a job, George gave him a pint for doing good work. Later, this is how the conversation went:

“Philo, how’d you like that whiskey I gave you?”

“Boss, it was just right.”

“Just right? What does that mean?”

“Well, boss, if it was any better you wouldn’t have given it to me. And if it was any worse, I wouldn’t have drunk it. So I guess it was just right.”

There you have it, no long, boring take-offs of the merits of whiskey, details nobody wants to hear. Just straight to the point.

Now, ‘just right’ is superior to some of its other lower-class, across-the-tracks relatives. Imagine Philo answering, like ‘not bad,’ or ‘pretty good.’ He could have said ‘OK,’ or ‘all right,’ or maybe even ‘fair’ or ‘outta sight.’ No, they’re cheap substitutes compared to ‘just right.’

True, ‘just right’ is a working-class idiom. It does not live in the same gated community as do some of its other more well-bred family members. You’ve met some of them, these formal and starchy adjectives and adverbs. They show up on engraved stationary and in country club conversations. Things like:

The holidays: marvelous
The symphony: stratospheric.
The trip: exhilarating.
The dinner party: smashing.
The wedding: lovely.

Huh? Such descriptive responses sound profoundly imposing but lack substance. They belong in British sitcoms. No, ‘just right’ is a utilitarian worker that shows up, gets the job done and leaves.

But back to Philo. What if he had attempted a more ‘perfect’ description to the question posed to him? How would it have come out? Maybe like this:

“Well, boss, that mash you so graciously bestowed upon me had extraordinary qualities. It had a subtle nose of smoky sensuousness, coupled with a distinct savor of an old Irish keg and yielded the unmistakable aroma of an aged raccoon. Its heavenly essence and dark luminescence reflected warmly the glowing orange coals of my fire.” Gag!

‘Just right’ did the trick, no superfluous discussion necessary.

Now, ‘perfect’ may have a purpose somewhere, though nothing comes readily to mind. It’s inherently flawed within itself, a pie in the sky dream. Moreover, it’s a hard taskmaster, a cruel tyrant. It demands more than can be achieved and dishes out harsh punishment to anyone attempting to placate its insatiable demands. It should be obliterated as an alternative for anything.

**********

So, let’s dispense with the notion of perfection and loosen up, take a breath and, like Philo, enjoy the fruit of our own labors.

O, the prison of perfection, and the freedom of ‘just right.’


Bud Hearn
December 13, 2019

Saving Face

"When you jump for joy, beware that no one moves the ground from beneath your feet.” Lec

**********

There's a lot of need for face saving in these times. Impeachment hearings may have been the best thing that's happened in America lately. Such gushing rubbish is entertaining the wrong people and making the right ones question their sanity.

There, on the stage of C-Span, a made-for-TV sleaze script was written by beggars, hack-stabbers and underwritten by a circus of media propaganda. So much pretense. Some trying to be what they're not, and others trying not to be what they are. We'll soon see who's face cracks first. But I have my own problems, like you do.

Losing face can happen anywhere, anytime. Just the other day I'm standing in a group, everybody's talking about impeachment. I open my mouth and out it comes...my opinion. As soon as the words slide off my lips, I know what's coming. Too late to call it back.

They look at me in shocked horror like someone who just developed a lethal case of leprosy. Humiliation attacks my fragile and carefully crafted ego like a savage assault of terminal arthritis. Face saving is out of the question. Dementia is the only solution.

It happens early, this need to deflect the humiliation of being caught, red-handed, resembling a bumbling fool. My very first recollection of needing to save face was in first grade, age 6. It didn't stop there.

It started innocently. My grandfather let me run wild under the bleachers at a baseball game where I entertained myself by breaking RC Cola bottles for fun. The penalty was a lacerated knee. I no longer spend time under bleachers and RC Colas have long vanished.

The embarrassment came when my father had to take me in his arms, like a baby, and carry me into class at school. Forget that I couldn't walk. But being carried like a tiny baby into class? The lacerations from humiliation leave scars.

In that class was a beautiful girl. Even at 6 it was obvious that she would be something special in about ten years. And there she was, looking at this lacerated imbecile being carried by his father into class. She never ceased to remind me of it. Rejections hurt.

I remember the last dialogue I had with my best friend Jimmy. It was on the day of high school graduation.

"Do you remember when your daddy carried you into first grade class?"

"I'm still trying to forget that day."

"What ever happened to you and what's-her-name? The romance didn't last, huh?"

"Guess not. I could never live down that day of embarrassment.”

But given time, things usually work out for the best. We never really got it on, so to speak, despite her early beauty. And at the 50th high school reunion the light of Providence shined brightly. She could have used serious ‘face-saving’ work herself. Rejection payback is a beautiful thing.

Humiliation happens to everyone sooner or later. Frank, a friend, shows up at this fancy formal and extravagant wedding wearing different shoes. But Frank's a quick study, has a strategy already planned out to save face.

"Uh, Frank, what's with the different colored shoes?"

"They're metaphors of marriage," he says.

"What?"

"Yeah. Male and female, different people. So, it seemed to be the proper thing to do."

It's a pretty thin argument, but at least it's a strategy. And that's what we need to develop, a strategy to avoid embarrassment and explain away being dumb and clumsy, because dumb and clumsy are facts of life.

I guess you're asking just how we might craft up a strategy that fits all circumstances? Beats me. But I venture to say that finding someone or something to blame will go a long way.

Take the situation in DC. Vengeance runs deep. Crucify, they scream; Blood, they shout. Why? Seems they want to send this fellow packing because he occupies a bigger house than they do. But what does he care? They're tramping on him like dirt in the street, some of which he created. Dumb and dumber are twins, don't forget.

So, what does he do? He moves on, mounts his helicopter and disappears. Taken as a strategy, ‘moving on’ is about as good a face-saving strategy as it gets.

**********

Get creative, you'll come up with something to fit every faux pas.

As for me. I'm trying to save face and explain away why my unzipped lips cause so many problems.


Bud Hearn

December 6, 2019

The Soul of Thanksgiving

“For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? “ Mark 8:36-37

The year was 1863. Abraham Lincoln was President. Strife ruled. The nation was at war with itself. The landscape by most visionaries was bleak and dreary. The nation seemed to have lost its bearings and its very soul. Being thankful under these conditions was seemingly impossible. The nation urgently needed to mend its fraying fabric.

Under these dire conditions Lincoln issued a proclamation establishing the last Thursday in November as a national holiday. His intent was to coalesce a nation of diverse cultures and individuals into a cohesive whole by remembering the origin of its birth. This year Americans will celebrate the 156th anniversary of Thanksgiving.

In 1620 pilgrims departed from Defts-Haven, searching for a new land with the ephemeral idea of freedom. They had no idea what they would face in the quest. As if the hardships of the voyage were not enough to deter them, what they saw at landfall must have made them question their sanity altogether.

There, looming before them in the stark winter stood a harsh land with a weather-beaten face. It appeared to them a country full of woods and thickets, a place full of untamed beasts and wild men. It had an ominous and savage hue. Such is the nature of the unknown…wild, fearful but full of promise.

It was up to these pilgrims to carve out their dreams and visions. They neither expected nor received the benefits of ease in the process. For having left their homes, having said goodbye to their families and friends, they said goodbye to the old life and searched for a better home.

We who read this today are benefitting from the sacrifices of these visionaries. We can ask ourselves these questions: Under what tyranny would we now be living if not for the perseverance of these intrepid travelers? How would our destiny have unfolded?

Fortunately, we have the answers. Living in America is a blessing of untold and incalculable dimensions. Read the news if you don’t believe this.

Some years ago on this date our family and friends sat in a Methodist Church in the small town of my youth. We gathered there to say a final goodbye to our mother. My nephew recalled the influence she had upon his life.

He synthesized it based on his annual visits for Thanksgiving. He recalled pulling into the driveway of his aunt’s home. The first thing he saw was her face in the kitchen window, welcoming him with a smile.

The soul of an American Thanksgiving also has a face. It’s seen in the Rockwell-blended faces of families, weaved into the fabric of a national tapestry. Each face represents a precious memory, of a home and a secure place where families can thrive.

The blessings of national unity are too broad to enumerate. But the collective voice of Thanksgiving blends them together at every table where food is served, where laughter resounds and where love is shared. The soul of being American is once again revived on this memorable day.

Today, the world is a dangerous place. It’s fractious, filled with secular pursuits, religious differences and political divisions. It seethes with national rivalries. Our country itself is not immune from its own fractured diversity. The daily news reveals it.

Yet in spite of this, America continues to stand, strong in the collective unity under which it was founded…established by a beneficent God for the purpose of freedom. A continuous remembrance of this fact is what Thanksgiving is all about.

Today the sun shines here the coast, but storms are brewing elsewhere. In the front yard a squirrel sits on its hind quarters, gnawing on acorns. It seems to smile as it feasts on the prodigious crop furnished by the oaks.

America has endured many storms. It will weather more. But, like the squirrel, we can take comfort in the fact that a gracious, Almighty God desires to furnish us with untold blessings. Our collective soul will continue to flourish as long as we remember the Source of these blessings.

**********

Thank you, Abraham Lincoln, for your foresight. And thank you, God, for blessing the soul of America another year. Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family. Truly, our cup runneth over.


Bud Hearn
November 26, 2019

Ashes of Love

I’m sitting in the Snip and Clip Hair Emporium, a fancy name for a ‘beauty parlor.’ I’m waiting for my turn for a haircut. It’s weird, sitting in the midst of women who can both talk and hear at the same time.

Times have changed. Everything is unisex now. Old stigmas are gone. Men are women, women are men. Like men, women have short hair, long hair and no hair. Everyone here has a tattoo. Who can make sense of it anymore?

The women eye me suspiciously, or lustily. Who knows what women think? The subject of today is about falling in love. Being the lone male, I keep my opinions to myself. It’s foolish to engage a bunch of women in such places. Especially those who pay big money in hopes of finding, or keeping, love affairs hot and torrid.

The subject of love reminds me of S. J. Lec’s comment, “The dying fire of enthusiasm should leave ashes to provide disguising makeup for our faces.” I keep the quote to myself.

Soon it’s my turn. As she snips my hair, it falls, sliding down the black silk robe to the floor. It mingles with other hair clippings. It reminds me of a visit to the New York Stock Exchange when it was a paper world. Slips of pink paper, like so much hair and confetti, lie strewn in profusion throughout the floor. Traders walk on it, oblivious to each slip’s past significance. Old News, old loves, they say. Some love good, some gone bad, but all past Ashes of love.

I listen to the women carry on about love, how to find it, how to keep it hot. I want to tell them fried blonde hair won’t do the job. But I’m outnumbered. Old loves come into my mind. How many were there? Too many to count.

My first love was my bicycle. Like all loves, it’s a means of escape. The affair lasted until I was 13. A motor scooter replaced it. Boys are fickle…no loyalty to old lovers. The bike rusted. Life moved on. Ashes of love.

I fell in love with music. I had every Elvis 45 rpm record, not to mention Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, and Bo Diddley. I lay awake at night, straining to hear snippets of WLAC, Nashville, or WCKY, Cincinnati. One can lose lots of sleep when in love. Music is a great lover, but it’s as capricious as the listener. Songs wear out, lose their fire. Ashes of love.

In 7th grade I fell in love with my second cousin ten times removed. At that genetic distance, it seemed safe. Blue eyes, and some crossed eyes, ran prominently in our family. The entire town showed up at our family reunions. Who would notice, I thought?

Alas, in 8th grade she was hustled off to a ‘finishing’ school for girls, which finished that romance. All that remained were love letters. I learned an important lesson from that experience…never take chances with ink, even at 13. I burned the letters. Ashes of love are ageless.

I have fallen in love often…with dogs, boots, back packs, cars, guns, airplanes, fishing just to name a few. But sooner or later they all get old, like lovers do. I ruthlessly discarded them without remorse, waiting for another one to show up. It always does. Inanimate divorces are cheap. Ashes of love litter my past.

Some fall in love with sports, like golf, or running. Loves of athletic origins are often bitter-sweet affairs but can turn on you quickly. Such ashes of love keep orthopedic surgeons smiling.

It’s risky to fall in love. Like dreams, love often evaporates into illusions, then remorse when the novelty wears off. Relationships, human or otherwise, often have a short shelf life. We live for the next new thing.

Suddenly I’m jolted back into the present. “Mister, what’s your opinion of keeping love hot and burning?” a woman asks. Be careful, I think, this is a trap. I just shake my head and shrug.

Somewhere in the back seat of my youth I hear Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty singing, “Love is where you find it, when you find no love at home; and there’s nothing cold as ashes, after the fire is gone.”

I look at my haircut in the mirror. I smile and say aloud to myself, “You handsome devil.” Some loves never die.


Bud Hearn
November 15, 2019

Ringers, Leaners and Total Misses

When we were young, we passed the time playing horseshoes. We play other games now.

**********

Maybe it’s a Sunday, or a sunny day after school when it happens. Boredom sets in. So, we’d roam the neighborhood, find somebody’s back yard and pass the time pitching horseshoes. I miss the days.

The setup was always the same. Soft dirt, no lawns. Pace off 40 feet, or shorter for the wimps who want an easy score. There’s no shortage of that crowd.

Then, with the bent backs of the iron horseshoes, we’d pound the steel poles into the soft dirt. In those days a lot of effort was expended off the backs of something or somebody---mules, tractors or people. Same today.

Occasionally sparks would fly when the horseshoe glanced off the pole, a reminder that later heated discussions could erupt over scoring and whose shoes were closest to the pole. Cheating was rare, but arguments can happen over stupid things.

We never thought that playing horseshoes could be a preparatory tutorial on what was to come later. Scores are always being kept. ‘Getting even’ and settling scores was always in the cards.

Only ringers and leaners made bank. Total misses, well, at least they showed you played, and after all, nobody wins every time in a zero-sum game like horseshoes. But in those days, it was just a game, nothing was ‘for keeps,’ unlike shooting marbles or falling in love. Years tend to change things, not always for the better.

If you have pitched horseshoes before, you can recall the game by memory. You’d position yourself, focus intently on the goal. Then you’d clank the iron shoes together for good luck or attention.

Then, all cocked and ‘loaded’ (sometimes a pun), you’d swing your arm back, and with a smooth fluid motion let go your best underhanded pitch (‘underhanded pitch’ can have different meanings). With luck your horseshoe would become a circus acrobat, making beautiful back flips in a perfect arc towards the leaning post. Most times not.

Of course, shooting for the post is the purpose of it all. Ringers get 3 points, leaners 2. Your heart sinks when your shoe rolls off uncontrollably in the distance or simply plows up the dirt with the sickening thud of a total miss. Even if you were blind, your ears would announce whether you’d lost that point or got lucky.

You play in dirt, you get dirty. And with horseshoes it’s impossible to keep clean. Dust, dirt and grit are a fact of life. Some games, like croquet, are cleaner and more refined. They’re played on manicured lawns by teams clothed in pristine white attire who whack large wooden balls through tiny steel arches with wood mallets while oohs and aahs resound quietly. It’s where wine and civilized cordiality rub elbows with thinly veiled hypocrisy.

Horseshoes is a more earthy sport that leans more to beer and bragging, one step higher than shooting pool. Its arena is filled with dirt and expletives, a place where hard iron and steel collide. It leaves behind the raw, chewed-up turf as a real-time symbol of the contest fought there.

Like in all games, there’s an ending. You feel it approaching before the reality sets in. It gets old, no longer fun. It becomes work. The arms get tired, the throws get wilder, the focus becomes dull and the initial purpose dissipates. No use wearing out a good thing. So, you call it quits.

You tally up the final scores, not worrying now about the results. Maybe it just wasn’t your day, or maybe it was. After it’s all said and done, what did it matter anyway. In the end it was just a game you enjoyed playing, beating back the horror of youthful boredom for another day.

**********

We don’t play horseshoes much anymore. We’ve moved on to other games, games with cleaner hands and digital players. But we remember the days, and some rules don’t ever change.

Ringers, Leaners and Total Misses. Playing horseshoes is a lot like life…it boils down to one pitch at a time. And score IS being kept.


Bud Hearn
November 4, 2019

The Kiss

It begins harmlessly enough, the first kiss. Who really knows what to expect? Only that it won’t be the last.

**********

They were young, the night was dark, the Senior prom was over. They sat in his car in the moonlit parking lot behind the school auditorium while the crowd thinned out.

Intensity filled the air. He timidly touched her hand. It touched back. Their eyes met; time stopped. Somehow, they couldn’t explain, they were drawn together. Their lips touched, and it happened, the first kiss. Youthful innocence is short-lived. They opened a door that would not soon close. Something primordial had begun, and their world would never be the same.

That kiss, it lasted too long
And we probably shouldn’t have danced to that song.
It was nothing,
It was absolutely everything…
That kiss, that girl, that place you go.
Where is she now?
You don’t even know. Liam J. Fray

I made all that up, except for the lines from Liam’s song.

Who can recall their first kiss, at least the one they actually initiated and passionately participated in? Someone said that women remember their first kiss while men forget their last one. But nobody forgets the explosive power that comes when lips touch, not to mention tongues.

Who ‘invented’ kissing, and what does it mean? Who knows, and moreover, who cares? Imagine what life would be like without kisses. Why, then the only purpose for lips and tongues would be for talking and eating and maybe, if you’re lucky, whistling. Boring.

While there are all kinds of kisses, not all are endued with eroticism. Eros kisses may be the best of the bunch, at least up to a certain age, but one can opt for other kisses along the way.

The kiss of ‘philia,’ may be the kiss most often used, especially in a public display of affection. It’s sort of like the French method, the double-cheek, air-kissing sort. Not to be confused, of course, with the other French iterations which tend more often than not to lead through the open door of bedrooms. Use caution.

Then there’s the ‘agape’ kiss, probably invented by a monk hibernating in a cave somewhere along the Dead Sea. Such kisses can be only described as indicative of ‘selfless love,’ or perhaps ‘charitable’ affection. Churches, politicians and faux eleemosynary evangelists have perfected this method of kisses, especially where the request for money is concerned.

Kisses change with age. There are the ‘before’ and ‘after’ variety of pecking. They begin with infant babies. Who can resist kissing the tots? As they grow, this proclivity of adults reaches its zenith about the age of four or five. They can no longer endure Aunt Florence’s stale-breath forehead kisses. Some say it’s the beginning of all sorts of youthful rebellion. That’s when patting heads begins.

Then there are kisses ‘after’ a certain age, where age is less chronologically defined than physiologically induced when wrinkles have rendered one’s face unappealing for lip-lock manifestations of affection. It ushers in the era of cheek kissing and kiss blowing. It’s a hygienic approach to kissing and keeps germs at safe distances.

Kisses are one of the few things in life that need no practice to be perfect. And some are better at it than others. I knew a fellow, Roy was his name. He was a natural-born kisser. He had lips so large he could kiss a wall and be stuck on it for weeks waiting for somebody to pry him off. He was a terror to all women.

Roy would walk the halls of the office, looking for a woman, any woman, to kiss. You’d see him coming, his bulbous lips licked to a shining sheen, ready for action. Avoidance from such predators is essential. It can be achieved simply by feigning interest and at the last micro-second turning the face, so his lips simply slide by, leaving only a wet streak across the cheek. Not perfect, but effective. The #MeToo movement kissed Roy back.

Honorable mention includes the ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ kisses. They usually begin with enthusiasm and hugs. But sometimes the departing ‘kiss-off’ can be misinterpreted. There’s the ‘see you later’ meaning or the ‘goodbye’ one whose first cousin is far more explicit. Vocal inflection is everything in goodbye kisses.


I’d leave you hanging if I didn’t include the most memorable kiss I ever had. It was from an orangutan. Ask me about it sometime.

But for now, just know that while kisses may not spread germs, they sure do lower resistance.


Bud Hearn
October 17, 2019

Resting on our Laurels

"The older I get, the better I was.” Anonymously inspired.

**********

Laurels…we’ve got plenty of ‘em. They cling to our walls and clutter our closets. Our photo albums bulge with them. Metals and badges occupy vases, shelves and cabinets. Storage units overflow with yesterday’s cast offs. Out of sight, out of mind. Why do we keep them? Because we’re in love with our past.

We’re proud of our achievements, our metaphorical branches of Laurus nobilis, garland wreaths of athleticism, statesmanship and feats of extraordinary accomplishments. Ok, so that was then, and this is now. They’re our mosaic of a life lived, though now dusty, withered and faded with age like some Dorian Gray portrait.

The Millennial crowd doesn’t clutter their spaces with such memorabilia. Not only because about all they have are a few high school or college leftovers—Home Ec certificates, faded football jackets or too-tight cheerleading uniforms—but also because there’s not much of a past to brag about with this group. Yet, that is. Today they’re the YOLO generation…you only live once. College diplomas are no longer required for job interviews.

My mother displayed my college diploma to anybody who’d pretend an interest. It had a blue seal at the bottom with the words, ‘cum laude.’ I never got much mileage out of the Latin inscription. But a couple of folks did ask why ‘summa’ was not there. It became obvious when they’d gotten to know me a little better. I have no idea where that diploma is today. So much for the ‘cum laude’ laurel.

The other day I was rummaging through a chest of drawers looking for some plastic collar stays. You know, those plastic doodahs that keep shirt collars from rolling up like they had a perm. Lying beneath an old ROTC metal for sharpshooting was a copper coin, tarnished with age. Its inscription evidenced the fact that on January 3, 1980, I succeeded in running a 50-mile ultra-marathon. The older I get, the better I was.

It wasn’t much of a laurel for such an enormous effort, but it reminded me of some good years of the past when the collection of laurels was important. I was inspired then and ran several more. But who’s ever satisfied with achievements. Life demands more. So, I decided to try a 100-mile run. It never happened. Joints wear out. Titanium hips are not laurels.

Some people have laurel obsessions. I knew a fellow with a fat wallet and a foul mouth who bragged about his safari hunting prowess. He had built a ‘game-head museum’ in his office. A grotesque assortment of lifeless heads of wild animals with glassy eyes hung on the walls. They looked down with a taxidermized sadness I’ll never forget. It was a monument to human ugliness. It gave me the willies.

There were rugs from the scalped hides of bears, lions and tigers, their once-menacing heads looking sad and pitiful being some weirdo’s decorative laurel. An amputated elephant leg doubled as a coffee table, and on the wall hung a pair of ivory elephant tusks, crossed like two medieval swords. He recited from memory each kill, the gun used and the muzzle velocity of each rifle. He dressed like Hemmingway. It was a despicable display of human depravity.

Laurels have no boundaries. I know others who have seen the world, swam with whales, climbed the world’s Everest, trod the stony streets of Jesus, crossed Caesar’s Rubicon and slithered down the wet alleys of Venice. They have photographs and videos and live to impress dinner guests with their been-there done-that adventures. Only starving fools accept their invitations to supper now.

Look around, laurels are everywhere...newspaper obituaries, resumes for important committees and exclusive club memberships. Some even wear their monetary methuselah metals openly, like badges. They pretend to be like some highly decorated warrior in uniform, not realizing time is gnawing the bones of their relevance. Pompous fools only impress the dimwitted.

Laurel branches still grow. Some wither but some are perennially fresh. Age is no barrier to achievement. Opportunities are new every day. So long as we trod this side of the grass, laurels are possible to achieve.

We would ask, “Is there any laurel worth resting on?” I am certain of at least one: Love, generously bestowed, never loses its luster and is evergreen to the end. Maybe you know others.

**********

The older I get the better I was. Maybe you, too. Res ipsa loquitor.



Bud Hearn
October 2, 2019

Batteries

What’s in a man’s pocket? Does anybody really want to know?

**********

Men walk around with their hands shoved in their front pockets all the time like they’re trying to hide something. Or maybe they just simply don’t know what to do with their hands. Pockets are as good a place as any to stash them for the time being.

Hands can sometimes be a problem. It’s dangerous to have loose hands. Not only are they prone to mischief, but they can pick up germs by the millions by fiddling with magazines with swimsuit photographs or opening doors. Wisdom is to always open public doors with an elbow or just simply lean against it. Sometimes I back into a door to open it. If you back in, it looks like you are walking out. Idiosyncrasies abound.

Have you ever wondered what treasures these pockets might be hiding? Large rolls of cash, protective talismans, knives, guns or other unmentionables? Maybe you have never thought about it, or care. Not your business what’s in another man’s pockets, you say. But you lie. You really want to know.

This morning I shoved my hand into yesterday’s jeans to empty the pockets. Like a blind man groping a familiar wall for direction, I find the usual suspects occupying their assigned space: a pen with the bank logo (they’re free) and a small bottle of eyewash. But then, something else: two small batteries, both dead as a doornail.

You might find it strange for someone to be walking around with two dead batteries in their pocket, like by some strange alchemy they will miraculously come to life. Let me help you understand…they’re there to remind me to get new ones. They’ve passed from life unto death. And nothing’s more worthless than a dead battery in a flashlight.

Remembering things is not as easy at this age. I used to keep a legal pad handy, filled with my list of things to do. I later found out that the bigger the pad, the longer the list, the less that got done. So, I converted to the smaller post-its stuffed into my shirt pocket. Hence the cliché, less is best.

We have our own peculiarities when it comes to remembering things. Forget the string-tied-to-the-finger routine. There are more creative ways, like Siri, Alexi, iPhone dings, and throwing notes on the floor at the door of your office.

My daddy always had at least two things in his pocket: a sharp pocketknife and loose change. His change was always sufficient to buy a coke from the cooler, but he threatened bodily harm if I touched his knife. Real men in that era all carried knives. It was the true sign of manhood, or so it seemed.

Now I don’t carry a knife, having discovered the pen is mightier than the sword. It can sign deposit tickets or write checks, even contracts in a hurry. I don’t know anyone now who thinks knife fighting is good sport.

To be honest, I don’t even care too much about loose change. I toss it in an old Choc-full-of-nuts coffee tin which, when it’s full, brings about $85 at the grocery store. Less, of course, the 10% usury rate they charge to convert to bills. Loose change is like dead batteries…what good is it anymore but to take up space in your pocket? It’s essentially as useless as a dead battery.

Sorry. I’ve drifted so far from my subject of batteries I find myself off in a writer’s ditch of confusion. Bear with me.

There’s a lot of discussion, and frustration associated with the short shelf life of batteries. Tesla is having a hard time selling cars running on battery power alone. I saw recently a plug-in station being run by diesel fuel. Try that on for irony.

Of course, with the Green Movement assault, batteries will soon power everything. We’ll all be wearing battery packs on our back to catch the sun’s rays. Finally, an end to dead batteries of all sorts. I can hardly wait for president Warren’s subsidy to arrive at my door.

Here’s a little-known trick. Spend $2 and save $40 bucks. Hack into a 12-volt battery and you’ll find 8 tiny 1.5 volt ‘button’ batteries. These tiny batteries will power five or six small flashlights. Google can show you how.

**********

But today I’m going to replace my dead batteries and unload my front pocket. That’s after I recharge my own battery at Starbucks.

What’s in your pocket today?


Bud Hearn
September 20, 2019

Hurricane Dorian…It Might be a Metaphor

About this time last week, we were warned the gates of hell were about to open. Escape while there’s time, they said, run for the hills. It’s coming, the hurricane. Evacuate, don’t look back. Save life and limb; don’t be like Lot’s wife who looked back. You know what happens when you fall for that backward glance.

Dorian the son of perdition, is its name. Formerly named Diablo, it was changed at the last minute so as not to suggest anything demonically sinister. Weather channel groupies were freaked out already and didn’t need any extra adrenaline.

No time to waste, the tv blasted. Dorian is on the way up the Atlantic coastline, promising to bring its Category 5 destruction with it. Of course, Jim and the weather team had prepped us for the horror to come about ten days earlier. As it approached the mainline, the dire warnings proved prescient. It left a wrath of destruction in Freeport, Abaco and Marsh Harbor.

The mass exodus and diaspora began, clogging roads and creating frenetic pandemonium. Lacking rain or wind sufficient to frame cinematic scenes, tv reporters were hard-pressed for excitement and resorted to interviews with harried gas shoppers and Walmart water purchasers. Exciting photos of wave foam blowing across vacant sands set something less of a tragic scene. After the Bahamas, you might say Dorian lacked drama.

Natural disasters are prime opportunities for advertisers on weather channels. They have even taken to choreographing the various scenes with music appropriate to situation. Drumbeats added to the urgency while trumpets and violins bring a heightened crescendo to the impending end times. Hand it to the advertising gurus, they know how to squeeze the utmost farthing from acts of God.

Dorian is the third hurricane in four years to head up the coast. Something’s clearly going on. It reminds me of the ancient prophesy by the prophet Haggai and later retold in the book of Hebrews:

“Yet once more I shake not only the earth but the heavens as well; and this saying, ‘Yet once more,’ signifies the removing of the things that are shaken, as things that are made, so that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.” Now meditate on this for a while.

Of course, no hurricane is a meditative matter. And anyone foolish enough to ‘ride it out’ has no brain from which to meditate. But being human, we Georgians waited anxiously to see the next card, glued to our tv’s for every hour-by-hour update. Leave or stay, we only decide at the last minute. We stayed, camping out at my brother’s home.

As it happened, Dorian sashayed about 100 miles out following the Gulf Stream. It swept the beaches clean and blew us a kiss as it passed by, sort of a reminder of hey, you owe me one.

Haggai was not alone in prophesy it seems. POTUS even found a way to light up the twitter lines. He prophesied that Alabama was the real destination of Dorian. But try as he might, he was unable to force a change of direction of the winds.

Nevertheless, the ruse apparently worked. While his sanity was again in question, his aids secretly brokered a trade deal with China. Today we own Hong Kong, and California has been ceded to China.

When we returned to our home the next day, we found nothing, just twigs and leaves scattered around. Not a limb was broken, not a tree had fallen. The Haggai text indeed proved a point. I sat on the porch and thought about it. We were blessed this time. Escaped what others did not.

This morning the butterflies float carelessly in slow motion over the flower garden. Two hummingbirds hover in midair, inspecting the late summer flowers and the cardinals fight over the feeder portals. All is peaceful…for now.

**********

‘Twigs and leaves’ give affirmation to Haggai’s prophesy. The winds blow, the rains fall and the weak are shaken. But the strong remain. As in nature, so in life.

Dorian is past, but its metaphor lingers. Twigs and leaves…It’s something to consider after a hurricane.


Bud Hearn
September 11, 2019

The Blemish

Blemish: n. A flaw, fault, stain or imperfection. Nothing’s perfect. Not even us.

**********

I found a blemish last Friday morning. It had desecrated my favorite pink linen shirt.

I’m sitting on the porch having coffee. It’s early. The morning’s quiet. Communion with birds and cicadas is a good beginning. I look down and there it is, a black spot next to a white button. Oops, be careful using black and white as adjectives. The Linguistic Police are lurking.

It’s a little stain, nothing to worry about. So I keep on reading, trying to ignore the blight that has besmirched my favorite shirt. But my eyes won’t let it be. It seems to grow larger, larger with each glance until it consumes my entire attention. It’s a call to action, the scourge must be eradicated.

I get a glass of water, dip my finger in it, dab a little on the blemish. Water washes most things clean, sometimes with a little detergent help. Nothing happens. I apply more water, rub a little harder. Nothing. More water, more rubbing. Can it be? The stain is beginning to disappear.

On a roll now. I keep the process going. Water, rub, water, rub. My shirt is soaked but the stain appears to be on the run. Time will tell. As with a lot of blemishes, time washes clean.

What was it, I wonder? Salad dressing? Newsprint? Blueberry drippings from the yogurt? I’ll never know.

And then ‘they’ come. They, the leaf blowers. They blast in with dual blowers. They assault the morning’s solitude with high-frequency audio blemishes.

Round and around they go, blowing every particle of dust from the neighbor’s pool deck. For twenty minutes they circle his pool, blowers screaming. They seem to be hung up in a circular vortex around the miniature pool. I’ve seen baptismal fonts larger than the neighbor’s chlorine puddle. I consider baptizing them in it. Finally, they leave.

The thing about blemishes is they’re everywhere. Like warts on your nose, they delight in finding ways to call attention to your imperfections.

Now take spaghetti and red sauce. They affirm the Law of Attractions, a metaphysical pseudoscience that avers, ‘like attracts like.’ If so, then red and white were either estranged lovers or twins, both restless until they reunite. On your clothes, that is.

Clothes are prime attractions for blemishes. How many times have our sleeves been saturated while dragging a French-fried potato through the ketchup? Or expensive neckties wasted by brown gravy oozing down the middle. Would naked be an option? We’d save on dry cleaning at least.

Mildew is a green curse of all things outdoors. It’s no respecter of pools decks or patio chaises. With a good baptism of Clorox and water the blight will become invisible. Forget orthodoxy…sprinkling or dipping work equally well.

Blemishes do wonders in besmirching our reputations. We open our mouths and out it comes. Gossip, secrets, lies, fake news and such. Our character is tarnished beyond repair. My mother would say, “Son, if you keep talking like that, I’m going to wash your mouth out with soap.”

I remember telling her it was because of daddy’s family, but it didn’t buy forgiveness. I didn’t have brains enough to tell her that it wasn’t the tongue’s fault. After all, the tongue is only the messenger. Our insides are what need a good washing to correct the problem.

Blemishes can also show up because of stupidity. Apply sunscreen. Do we? Sometimes. And then the day comes when the dermatologist carves us up like a pet pig being prepped for bacon. Stupidity is a tough spot to remove.

While water washes most things clean, blood is a toughie to remove. The rule is to soak with cold water as soon as blood stains appear. But there’s no guarantee of success if it dries. Pilate washed his hands quickly but found out later that some blood is a permanent stain.

What’s left to say? Blemishes are everywhere. Always have been, always will be.

And just when I thought I’d escaped, here ‘they’ come again, the leaf blowers. Either the neighbor’s pool deck is filthy, or they forget they’ve been there before. Ten more minutes before the silence returns.

And now back to my pink linen shirt. The linen is dry, the stain is gone. Water works miracles.

**********

I find then a moral to this episode: Given time and a good washing, most blemishes will disappear.

Maybe there’s something to baptism after all.


Bud Hearn
August 30, 2019

Lonesone, On'ry and Mean

Thanks, Waylon, you pretty much nailed how we feel about the state of things in general, and Dog Days in particular.

**********

Last Wednesday passing through the island guard gate the temperature read 100. The heat index hovered at 109.

The ‘guards’ moved like zombies in a humidity-induced stupor. I don’t know where the day found you, but one thing I’m sure of: there’s not enough freon to go around. Welcome to Dog Days in Dixie

The heat does something to people. Brains liquify and folks find it hard to form sentences. Intelligent dialogue is pretty much summed up like this encounter with the gate guard:

Me: “Hot, huh.”

Guard: “Uh?....” Beginning and end of sentence.

Heat and humidity are no respecter of people or places. Over in Arkansas the index hit 119 degrees. Things haven’t been this hot in Arkansas since Bill got tangled up with Jennifer and Paula while Hillary was shooting the rapids of Whitewater. If Gary Hart had come up the river with his Monkey Business yacht, the state would have erupted in flames.

Down in Clarksdale, Mississippi things were no better. The steam index hit 121 degrees. People got so lonesome they rocked, resurrected and listened to old Jerry Clower videos. The last time things were this hot in Mississippi was when Marcel got tangled up with a she bob cat instead of a coon in the top of a magnolia tree.

When things got heated for Marcel hanging in the top of that tree, he hollered, “Shoot up here amongst us, Jerry, one of us needs relief.”

This lament is still preached as gospel in every rural church in Mississippi. It’s brought salvation to more folks than Jimmy Swaggart, who cried and sweated his way off TV in Louisiana a few years ago. There’s no vacuum in nature or religion. TV ‘love’ offerings are finding their way to the PO Box of a grinning ‘Profit’ in Texas named Joel.

Pockets of long-smoldering ashes are spontaneously flaring up. Some blame climate change. Too many cows, too much methane, they say. People are pledging their first-born for reprieve. Relief only comes with a huge ransom.

Someone’s always to blame. All evidence points to the state utility monopolies. Utility executives luxuriate in air-conditioned comfort in penthouse offices in Atlanta. They lunch scrumptiously off revenue from bloated power bills. They smoke big cigars and watch their customers writhe below like worms on beds of hot asphalt. It’s making folks mighty ornery.

But then, things are heating up everywhere. We’re having nightmares wondering which political party to believe. It’s making folks downright mean. The quaint concept of loving your neighbor is fuel for the incinerator. Vicious innuendo and promises, insane promises without meaning, roar from flaming tongues of 2020 candidates and set on fire the course of nature. Relief in nowhere in sight.

Nationally, a caldron is boiling. We wake up with night sweats. We must choose what sort of ‘supremist’ we are. Diversity, gender and reparations are old news. What are the choices, we ask? The best advice is to avoid the color chart and check the Neanderthal box.

The Global slowdown gets deeper. Fires everywhere. The glory of permanent riches fades. Capitalism smolders, socialism for all-things-free fires up. Stocks and bonds melt like wilted flowers. Recession looms. Farm crops rot in the fields as the last Chinese buyer bolts for the door. Only kudzu, the Southern Cannibal, survives Dog Days unscathed.

But enough bad news. Is there any good news out there? Yes. Donald is going to buy Greenland.

Don’t boil over. Imagine the possibilities. Greenland is melting, America is boiling. We’d do ourselves and them a favor to divert all that ice water back into the Gulf Stream. Imagine, no more hurricanes and having to watch Jim Cantore blowing in the breeze.

Remember Seward? Poor fellow. He bought Alaska from Russia for 2 cents an acre, a bargain. His reward? History hung him with the infamous distinction of ‘Seward’s folly.’ Until gold was discovered. Gold changes things. Maybe Donald knows something we don’t. If so, he’s not tweeting. Gold T’s everywhere.

Closer to home, the police report Walmart is still the pilferer’s preference, and arguments over women and alcohol continue unabated on L Street. Pretty normal for Dog Days in Brunswick.

Lonesome, On’ry and Mean…kick back and embrace the feeling. The party’s just started.


Bud Hearn
August 19, 2019

Today I Fell in Love with a Mannequin

Falling in love is easy. Happens all the time. One might conclude we’re born to love. Even flings with mannequins.

**********

Objects of affection are everywhere. Like lovers, they change depending on whims. They can just pop up out of nowhere, grab us and we’re hooked.

Today I fell in love with the mannequin in the island’s only family-owned drugstore. It’s the last place one could imagine falling in love, unless one is swooned off his feet by pills, palliatives or psychological placebos.

Pharmacies push pills for everything. Some even guarantee to keep love alive and well. Which might be why the mannequin is there in the first place, standing in a sultry tilt as you walk through the door. It’s a touch of marketing genius.

I had barely stepped inside when I saw it. I did a double take. Even at second glance it seemed out of place. Second glances are dangerous. If the first doesn’t get you, the second one will. It’s the conception of lust.

Remember the adage, ‘In battle the eye is first overcome?’ Well, believe me, bubba, lust is a hard battle to win. Mano a mano. Oh, you’ve tried, have you? How did that work out for you?

Now, lust is not an evil word, although it’s a party crasher in polite social discourse. It can conjure up the seamy side of things. Lately it has taken on a nasty connotation, sort of like the super-charged term ‘racist.’ These troublemakers tend to stir up a lot of mischief wherever they go. If accused, defenses go up and denials gush forth. But I digress.

Somebody with salacious psychological insight obviously enjoyed dressing this mannequin. I had to shove a few guys out of the way to just to take a peek. They’d been there too long already. One had started drooling and another was gobbling Tums.

It was one of those faceless mannequins, a slight nose, but no mouth, ears or eyes. It’s best to allow the imagination to take you where it will. One can keep the sordid details stored in their own secret memory album. Time, place and action are personal.

Today’s mannequin modeled a flimsy suggestive cotton beach coverup, one like you see advertised in slick spa magazines depicting the French Riviera along the Cote d’Azure. While East Beach has no resemblance to the Mediterranean coast, imagination and pretense can still do a pretty good job of substitution.

Judging from today’s gawkers, I doubt if they’d ever been to a French coast. If they had, they’d be doing a lot more than just drooling.

We should always be on the lookout for opportunities to help our fellow man. This was a perfect time for a short homily from the Good Book on the perils of an overactive imagination, especially when it’s drawn to scanty beach wear. But the best advice I could give was: “Men, don’t let your eyes take you on a trip your body can’t handle.”

But since my imagination had also fallen under the mannequin’s spell, the warning was blatantly hypocritical. Hypocrites have been stoned for less.

Somehow, I escaped the gravitational allure of the mannequin and patted myself on the shoulder that I’d just conquered today’s battle with lust. I strolled on back to the pharmacy for the pain panaceas. Amazing how a little pain can chill a lot of romance.

While waiting for my ‘fix,’ I noticed the front-page article on the New York Times. It read, “We don’t have to rely on men anymore.” I read a few lines. Seems Japanese women are fed up with marriage, despise men and are marrying themselves. Yes, marrying themselves.

Things always come full circle. In reflecting on my short-term romance with today’s mannequin, I recalled what a pushover Adam was. No questions asked, no goading required. He submissively ate that fruit right from Eve’s hand. And if today’s mannequin had been serving grapes, well, it would have confirmed the eternal truism: ‘love is blind.’

Is it really possible to fall in love with a mannequin? Maybe, with a vivid imagination. But admit it, we love certain psychological personifications: Ronald McDonald, Mickey Mouse, Energizer Bunny and Uga. Some even love the ass, uh, donkey, representing the Democratic Party.

**********

Today’s love affair with the mannequin was short but refreshing. Amazing how little imagination it takes to make the heart smile.


Bud Hearn
August 9, 2019

A Perfect Response

Is there an answer for every Why that’s uttered? Yes, in a word: Because.

**********

It starts early in life, this obsession with the question of Why. Remember this dialogue?

“Mommy, can I have this?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

“Because why?”

“Because I said so.” End of discussion. The Voice has spoken.

Frank McCourt, the author, once wrote about his indoctrination into the Catholic church. He said the catechism began something like this:

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, the creatures and mankind.”

He remembers agreeing with this much, since he knew he had nothing to do with it and didn’t know anybody who could perform such a trick. But what he didn’t understand was ‘Why’ God did it. Because was the only answer he got.

Life is complicated enough without trying to figure out the ‘why’ of everything. When we embark on that holy grail, we find ourselves in a sea of confusion trying to explain our actions or thoughts.

Country music is full of Why’s. Hank Williams, Jr sang, “Hank, why do you drink, why do you roll smoke, why must you live out the songs that you wrote.” He answers these Why’s best he could: “I’m just carrying on a family tradition.” He could have just said Because, only its simplicity wouldn’t have produced many royalties.

Who can say with certainty why they prefer anything: this person over that one, or this career over another one? Or why we prefer some food and not others. And love, now that’s the great conundrum. Who can say why they love this person and not another one? Because is the best and truest response.

I’m often asked, “Why do you write?” Bukowski the poet answered it for me like this: “I write for myself to save what’s left of myself.”

But neither he nor I really grasped what lay inside us. It’s a pretty good explanation, but Because would have summed it up as well. Why do you do what you do?

Who can deny that our reasons are often illogical, sometimes absurd and mostly leave us wondering why we can’t put our finger on the answer? So much is illusion.

On my office desk is a miniature skeleton, sitting on a box and holding a tiny banjo. Punch a button and it begins to strum Dixie. If one didn’t know better, it would appear he’s actually playing the tune, a sort of legerdemain. But inside the box is a tiny machine that plays the banjo, and not the skeleton. How easily we’re tricked.

Then there’s the fable about the bantam rooster, the barnyard blowhard, who convinced the other chickens that the sun comes up only because of his crowing. The ruse worked well, and even he believed it. But one day he overslept, and the sun rose anyway. So much for illusion and delusion.

Currently occupying a big white house in Washington is a very big rooster. He’s the reigning potentate of the chaotic barnyard and crows a lot with twitter, early and often. The sun comes up with his twitters and seismic events occur. His crowing drowns out most of the lesser cackling among the other barnyard chickens. Big Rooster controls the barnyard dialogue. What if he overslept?

I’m taking this opportunity to crow a little myself. There was a time, a time long ago, when I envisioned myself a runner. I ran several fifty-mile events, more endurance marathons than races. Why did I do such a thing? I asked myself, and so did others. My best answer was Because.

Remember when we were children, riding our broomstick horses, our rocking hobby horses or flying on our witch’s broom? We tricked ourselves. We really carried what we thought carried us.

Humanity won’t cease trying to discover what lies behind the Why’s in life. The philosopher Pascal said, “(t)he heart has reasons which the reason does not know. It’s the heart that feels God, not the reason.”

Someone said we beg, borrow or steal a few rags of reason to understand our Why’s. We get paralyzed in the process; and our actions are muted. And we find ourselves going around in endless circles, coming no closer to the truth than when we began.

If there’s a reason and a reward in life, who can understand Why? Because is the oldest reason, the safest one and the strongest one.

**********

And you can make a safe bet that tomorrow the sun will rise, no matter who’s crowing. Why? Because.


Bud Hearn
August 2, 2019

The Egg of Columbus

There was a time you were trapped in a box canyon, no way out, escape impossible, UNTIL…

**********

Life is full of box canyons. How easily we’re lured into their labyrinthine lairs. We stumble in circles, groping like the blind for the exit, any exit.

We bounce from pillar to post, hopelessly hemmed in, staggering deeper into the dead end of despair. Disaster’s ghoulish grin mocks us, waiting silently at the end for the end. We need Houdini.

Like Houdini, we know what it means to have been boxed in by circumstances, buried alive by insolvable situations, packed and put away to marinate like a box of salted mullet.

How many were the times our hands were shackled, our feet in fetters, dragging about the chains and manacles of the past like Dicken’s ghost of Jacob Marley?

Houdini has become a metaphor for escape, an example of how to be constrained by a straitjacket, put in a box and sunk, or buried, and, with no possible means of escape, still get out. Can we appropriate such a metaphor to our own sorry state of affairs?

Remember when you were underwater, drowning in debt, no way out, the end was near? The paycheck evaporated; the bonus wasn’t there. The credit cards maxed; the mortgage overdue, car in the shop, the kid’s college tuition check that bounced.

Oh, those sleepless nights listening to the Greek chorus rehearsing its funeral dirge. You were about to give up, take your last breath, UNTIL…then something happened, a door opened, a relief showed up. You escaped.

Remember the brilliant idea you once had? The idea that generated more laughter than accolades and labeled you as just another hair-brained crackpot. Even your best friends avoided you. UNTIL, against all odds, it worked out.

Often ideas and discoveries seem surprisingly simple and easy after the fact. Columbus experienced this. His detractors diminished his discovery of the Americas as inevitable and no big deal. So, what did he do?

To prove his point, he challenged them to balance an egg on its end. Can’t be done, they said. UNTIL Columbus tapped the egg on its end, and it stood upright, proving that creativity is a sure-fire getaway. There’s a key for everything. Find it.

Sometimes the mind gets bogged down in blind alleys. Remember the Gordian Knot? It’s often used as a metaphor for an intractable problem solved easily by creativity. It remained a problem UNTIL Alexander the Great showed up, sliced the knot in half. No more knot, no more problem. Pretend you’re Alex.

The sociopathic Stalin had his own problem, UNTIL he reduced it into its simplest terms: people were the problem. Therefore, the solution was simply fewer people. History proves his sadistic point.

We also have people problems, situations so bizarre it’s as if an elephant were conducting the circus. Houdini made an elephant disappear once in front of a packed-house audience. What’s our escape plan?

The enormity of dysfunctional familial and social relationships finds us with poor exit strategies. People are constantly at one another’s throats, friends falling out over petty dystopian differences, swearing and calling each other bad names. Such is rampant in homeowner associations, little league sports and all church committees.

Down to the last straw, we plead with ‘Forgiveness’ for help. It shakes its head, says the cacophonous chatter of the me, my and mine generation drowns out all logic. Still, it may be the simplest means of making the elephant disappear.

Mohammed was a pious fellow, if not a little full of himself. He prayed himself into a corner attempting to prove he could move a mountain by prayer. It never budged.

He was publicly ridiculed for his folly. He gave up fasting, dusted off the ashes, shook off the sackcloth of pride and instead went to the mountain. He found it a crowded maze, a mosh pit of people pushing and shoving, all trying to get to the top. Some were Democrats.

He was perplexed UNTIL The Voice said, “Mohammad, mountaintops are for looking at the world, not a place where the world looks at you.”

Houdini had his tricks, and like any magician had an exit strategy. Most of us depend on native intelligence, innate common sense and a dose of good luck which always seems too little, too late. It helps perspective to remember, “The Almighty may never send a fortune when a shilling will do.”

**********

If Houdini is a metaphor, then so are we. Often trapped, no way out UNTIL…now finish the sentence with details of your own narrow escape.


Bud Hearn
July 19, 2019

Staying in the Game

Competition is brutal, mano a mano. The stakes are high. Only the strong survive. Think twice if you’re trying to stay in the game.

**********

Born again, the mantra of America. A rebirth every minute for somebody, a company, a new name, a new game. Something dies, something new is born. There is no void in the pursuit of relevance.

The WSJ music section headline announces a few days ago, “The Boss Heads in a New Direction.” That would be Bruce Springsteen, who else? More about this in a minute.

I’m sitting on my brother’s porch one day, my brother who lives next to the golf course. He got smart and found a way out of the dentistry game several years ago. We watch the duffers come and go and confiscate their errant slices from the yard. Twenty-four yesterday alone.

A threesome approach the tee. Two hit pretty decent drives. The third one swaggers to the tee, stretches, does his best Dangerfield and positions the ball. The swing, a mighty effort for a total miss.

He shrugs it off, laughs. The others ignore him. He sets up, takes another swing, a topper that bounces about twice and comes to rest about five feet from the tee. Undaunted, he takes another swing. Grass and dirt. The ball flies straight up, landing about ten feet away.

He turns around, drops his club and raises his hand to the heavens as if to think, or perhaps say, “I give up.” He’s realizes he’s not in the game, never has been, never will be; needs a new direction. Reality is sometimes sad but always instructive.

It must be hard these days, trying to stay in the game. What can be done? Everyone’s trying to find a gig, some way to keep their face in front of the crowd, to keep the money rolling in.

Some resort to TV. Others to billboards. George Forman now sells home improvements. Former NFL coaches pimp hearing aids. Selleck hawks reverse mortgages. Freeman sells Mellow Yellow. Sajak’s Wheel keeps spinning though Vanna doesn’t do close-ups anymore.

On highway billboards lawyers with big budgets and squirrelly mustaches promise windfalls while gorgeous women Realtors sell dreams. Money is their common denominator.

Wherever you look, people are trying to stay in the game of relevance, some for money, some for prestige, some who just want to find inspiration for keeping on keeping on. Motives may differ, but not need.

But not Bruce. Hitting 70 has given him focus, he has vision, his motive is clear. He has a legacy to protect, to solidify, lest he be blotted out of posterity by hip hop, rap and other sound waves passing for music.

Now I won’t be able to help Bruce, not caring too much about his barroom specialty R & B sounds. Merle and Waylon speak to the soul, and their legacy is intact permanently with me. But you’ve got to give Bruce credit, he’s on a mission.

Not that Bruce needs more money or recognition. He has enough royalties to last more lifetimes than he will ever enjoy. So, what’s his purpose of staying in the game? Same as all former presidents with their Presidential Libraries…hey, I lived, I was somebody. King Tut was like-minded. Where’s his relevance now? Ho hum.

Bruce has a new album, “Western Stars,” mixed with old Glen Campbell sounds as inspiration. The theme is a dreamlike, mythical world, a Western world of faded Levi’s, of open sky, of freedom and possibility, mixed with isolation and loneliness, a John Wayne world that existed before raucous concern of climate change, Confederate iconoclasts and the advent of Rocket Man.

Bruce’s photo in the article is evocative, a throwback to a more innocent time. He stands, leaning casually against a 70’s pickup with a dented front grill, looking off in the distance. He wears his signature neck chains, white tee under a Levi jacket overlaid with a sheepskin leather jacket, collars turned up. He holds a beat-up cowboy hat and shoves one hand in the pocket of his jeans.

His hair is dyed black, except for the graying sides, but his weather-beaten facial expression sends the message that he’s out of context and would rather be back in a dark bar with his screaming guitar. But such photos are for show, and this one sends the message designed.

Bruce and the duffer might have something in common…they’re both in their own way trying to stay in the game, the game of life, a game full of romance and surprises, in spite of it all.

**********

Reinvention and reincarnation. Only in America, friends, only in America.


Bud Hearn
July 12, 2019

Spirit of Rebellion

The War of Independence was an unfair matchup. England, population 6.4 million, a military of 2.4 million and an awesome armada, versus The Colonies, about 2.5 million farmers and colonists. No Las Vegas bookie would have bet on America. But God did.

**********

There’s a rebellious streak in youth. It’s a natural tendency. It’s born to despise authority, to abhor rules, to kick back at every provocation that seeks to restrict its sense of freedom. If you don’t believe this, adopt a teenager.

The young are revolutionists, sometimes seditionists. Innovation is their magic carpet. They detest traditionalism. Their minds have not yet crossed the threshold of Concession or Impossibility. Things are black or white, not gray. It’s blood and guts, not cookies and tea.

Youth has something to prove, and it’s restless until it does. It’s impervious to danger, eats it like nail soup. It spits in the face of death and dares it to complain. Change is a quick snack. It always wants more.

Old men don’t dig trenches. They don’t wage wars in the dust, the heat, the cold, the mud and the blood. It’s viewed at safe distances with smarmy handlers, catered meals and corporate sponsors. Their empty platitudes are masks of insincerity at the gravesites of patriotism.

Strategy and political maneuvering are their amusements. Their spirit of conflict is overcome by their pacifistic urge to compromise with status quo. They conduct closed-door conferences, initiate schemes of international intrigue. The globe is their chess board. Youth are their pawns. Don’t rock their boats.

Is America becoming soft by compromise, anesthetized by wealth, obese by inaction? Is it content with the noose of choking regulations or acquiesce of personal independence squeezed out by a greedy central government? Is it happy with the constraints imposed by a bloated bureaucracy? Where’s the spirit of rebellion headed today? Who are the protesters?

America was conceived as a nation of rebels. Like youth itself, it was a wild, vast and desolate wilderness, full of promise, privation and possibility. Its future was unknown, untapped and untried.

The bones of its skeleton are nationalistic; its flesh the principle of charity; its breath the soul of freedom. God spoke these words once again unto the chaos of America, “Son of man, can these bones live?” They did, and in 1776 America was born. It remains a mighty nation now for 243 years.

America thrives on a cult of perpetual youth. The quest for the Fountain of Youth ended in 1513 in what’s now St. Augustine, Florida, the oldest city in America. Ponce de Leon had a vision, but it was 263 years early. Today the spirit of that vision is alive and well.

America is not planted in concrete. It’s sleepless, ever inventive, always transformative. It runs, not walks. Enough is never enough. Perfection is just another milestone to something better. The culture of constant rebirth boils in the national spirit. Caste finds no home here.

How is this possible? America’s freedom was not born of a religious fanaticism. Nor by slick, sugar-coated words of doctrine that rolled off the tongues of politicians. Freedom comes at the expense of blood, not vowels. The blood of Colonial Patriots still cries from the earth, "Remember, remember, remember." This is what we celebrate on Independence Day.

America was a dream. Dreams are ephemeral. They vanish easily at daylight. Dreams need nurture. The visions are gifts that need to be stirred up regularly. Like the grit of discontent, it impels us to action.

Tomorrow we will again celebrate Independence Day with parades and egalitarian events nationwide in our land that blossoms like the Garden of Eden. We will for a day reignite the Spirit of Freedom that thrives in our nation. We will eat 150 million hot dogs and the words ‘lily-livered’ and ‘yellow belly’ will not be uttered.

Overhead fireworks will explode everywhere. Like the bursts of muskets and cannons, may each one remind us of the sacrifices that were made by the Patriots and continue to be made by stout-hearted men and women in uniform.

**********

America’s future of freedom will continue to be earned by the sacrifice of patriots who possess faith in the heart, freedom in the soul and fire in the belly. May our Spirit of Rebellion always remain alive, ready, willing and able, living out the creed of, “One nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all.”


Bud Hearn
July 3, 2019

Mosaic of Summer Memories

Summer announces itself in many ways. Our memories have stored the sights, sounds and scents of the season from days of youth, which is maybe the best way to think of summer.

**********

It’s early morning when I open the car door at Dr. Greene’s office. I’m here for a fasting blood test to determine, among other things, whether the continued consumption of chocolate can seriously alter a cognitive state of being. You have your own addictions, so don’t gloat.

I’m early. The office is closed. It is a one-story building surrounded by massive oak trees with a view of the river. Two rocking chairs on the porch invite patients to relax before entering. I do. Anxiety awaits inside.

Without caffeine my nerves are calm. I smell the freshly mowed grass while an invisible mockingbird mimics his own mosaic of melodies. Summer sounds, summer scents wake up memories long ago stored in the archives of youth, as fresh today as they were decades ago.

Like looking at a silent 8 mm home video of life, long past, the memories flood in without effort.

Barefoot and footloose, hallmarks of the season,
Flashbacks recollect their itinerant wanderings.
Watermelons…thick, red, juicy with black seeds
Waiting, while we listened for Mama’s call.

June bugs and cow patties strewn in the fields,
Tadpoles and tree frogs all for the catching.
Fireflies and butterflies, nature alive,
Dragonflies and bird nests outside the screen door.

The blueberry patch, the wild plum trees,
The strawberries, wet with dew.
The blackberries, their thorns like barbed wire,
The cobbler, worth the barbed conflict.

The fishing pole, the swimming hole
The beach that stole our hours,
The secret climbs in sturdy oaks,
The bike rides into town.

I recall a year ago when we stood in the shade of a tall pine tree,
Matt and I, in Woodbine, barely a town,
Caught in the same time warp as our memories.
Empty sidewalks, a vacuum of stifling heat where nothing moves fast.

Around the corner they came. One bike, two boys.
One pedals, the other rides free, standing on the rear wheel struts.
Summer is here, South Georgia at its best.
They own the road, the scene and the day.

Like cumulus clouds in motion slow they pass, unconcerned,
Going nowhere fast, the point of it all anyway.
In shorts, shoeless, shirtless, oblivious, all they need to own,
No watch, no wallet, no wireless, no worries.

Will they recall this day? Memory seeps in slowly.
They have today what we had in ours, freedom just to be.
Though they or we give little thought to what it means,
Still they know it, not in words, but how it feels.

We feel it, too, the Frosty Kool-Aid days of yesteryear.
We hear a song, familiar, unforgotten, from a church far away:
“Precious memories, how they linger, how they ever flood my soul,
In the stillness of the midnight, precious sacred scenes unfold.”

So here I sit, rocking and waiting for Dr. Greene,
Reliving some barefoot days of youth,
While others find memories elsewhere,
Sipping their coffee in the cafés of strangers.

**********

It’s not hard to access our mosaics of summer memories. All that’s needed is a password, and a rocking chair is as good as any.


Bud Hearn
June 21, 2019

The Last Parking Space

The most precious and coveted parcel of real estate in an asphalt-paved world is a 10’ x 15’ parking space, especially if it’s the last one open.

**********

It’s Memorial Day weekend. The parking lot is a teeming mosh-pit of irritable shoppers. Common courtesy, like yesterday’s chewed bubble gum, lies melting on the scorching pavement. People move in slow motion like zombies. Silent heat monkeys radiate from tops of cars and dance in the hellish heat that sizzles from the black tar below.

Desperate drivers with frazzled nerves cruise up and down the rows. No empty spaces. Their roulette wheel of luck keeps spinning. Then suddenly, over there, a car backs out, a space opens. Two black behemoths with blacked-out windows both charge it. Who’s gonna get it? I perk up.

I’m parked in the shade under an oak tree with Bogey, our dog. We’re casual observers in this unfolding pageant, watching human nature play out its dance of chance in the crowded parking lot.

“Bogey, who will get that space?” He yawns.

A stalemate occurs. It’s a tight spot but that doesn’t seem to matter. They both want it. They inch closer, head to head, each eliminating the other’s opportunity.

With egos idling, they sit stewing in their urban tanks, hulking steel beasts that personify the perception of personal invincibility. They rev their engines like two hot-blooded blowhards shaking their fists in a schoolyard shouting match, arguing about nothing.

Hi-beam halogens flash ominously, a sign that says, ‘Back off.’

It calls to memory the schoolyard contests of the past, translating the equivalency of ‘one’s afraid and the other is glad of it.’ A lot of hot air is exhaled in schoolyards.

They inch closer, these lurching, menacing brutes. Their gleaming steel bumpers flash like medieval armor on modern-day gladiators, arrayed for battle, separated by an imaginary Maginot line. The impasse continues. Meanwhile, the empty space simmers in the stifling morning heat. Inside the airconditioned enclaves, safe with the doors locked, the unheard bombastic diatribes begin.

“Shove off, I was here first,” the Monster says, adding for emphasis the reference to a hyphenated anatomical body part.

The opposing Giant speaks, “Talk’s cheap, chump,” invoking ‘mother’ in the mix. The back and forth dialogues intensify over the concept of ‘who’s first.’

“I have right-away, you’re a yield. Are you dumb?” the Monster speaks, stressing ‘dumb’ by also adding its own anatomical reference.

“My blinker said I saw it first. Are you blind?” the Giant speaks, adding an adjective that ends with ‘ing’ to modify the noun ‘blind.’

With each rhetorical retort the mighty roar of exhausts from the supercharged behemoths bellow their boasts of first-come supremacy. The oleander flowers quake and quiver in the tense stand-off.

A crowd of gawkers gather. They choose sides. Wagers are made. Loud cheers erupt as the behemoths roar and shake their heft in the sultry heat. Wild shouts from the spectators energize the dueling behemoths. How great a matter over nothing a little fire can kindle.

The battle of ‘I-was-first’ escalates. Windows go down, arms go out and fingers go up. Chest thumping, emotional bluster and empty rhetoric electrify the spectacle with no resolution in sight. The last parking space still sits empty, making a mockery of the standoff.

The doors of the behemoths open. Legs appear. The warriors are shedding their armor in anticipation of a full-on square off. The crowd becomes breathless, anticipating a final resolution of the ‘who-was-first’ dilemma.

Then something strange happens. A sound is heard. It’s a grocery cart. It has slipped the grip of some thoughtless nitwit. Its trajectory centers on the empty parking space. It rolls slowly on wobbly wheels toward the arena of aggression, now mostly a shouting match of name-callin’ and dog-cussin.’

The vagrant grocery cart winds its wobbly way through the crowd. Like a deranged derelict stumbling between two gunfighters on the streets of Laredo, it wobbles between the aggressive behemoths and staggers to rest in the middle of the empty parking space.

Conflict averted. Game over. The crowd exhales, laughs and leaves. The behemoths do a final up-yours runup and keep circling.

And so it ends. Today’s dilemma of ‘who-was-first,’ resolved by a runaway grocery cart.

**********

Life has strange ways of resolving stupid conflicts. And while it might be just another casual observation, I’m pretty sure nobody will be fighting for the last parking space in the cemetery.


Bud Hearn
June 5, 2019

Boiling a Frog

“O, hypocrites, you can discern the face of the sky; but can you not discern the signs of the times?” Matthew 16:3

**********

Reading is dangerous. It exhumes thoughts, disturbing thoughts, thoughts that poke us, voices that whisper, images of smiling frogs being boiled, signs that expose culture’s addictive character. Can we change our way of thinking?

Thinking’s hard work, changing directions is even harder. My daddy was laconic, prone to brevity but pretty good with homespun wisdom. He could read the signs of the times as good as any gypsy.

“Now son, whenever you get into hot water, get out quick,” he’d say, reminding me of Stanislaw J. Lec’s aphorism: “I prefer the sign that says ‘No Entry’ to the one that says ‘No Exit.’”

Now I’ve never boiled a frog before, but others have. You know the notion. Put a frog into a pot of tepid water, increase the heat slowly and the frog will be boiled without even knowing it. It seems heartless to subject hapless amphibians to such extreme experiments.

Still, many experiments and studies continue to validate or to dispute the verity of this thesis. They’re equally contradictory. The only absolute is that the game is rigged against the frog. Slow scalding has a zero-sum outcome.

The only consensus that surfaces is if the frog has a way out, he’ll take it. But if not, what’s the significance of these experiments? Since there’s no recorded incident of a frog being resurrected, the experiments have been synthesized philosophically into a universally adaptive metaphor.

It has entered the lexicon as the ‘boiled frog’ hypothesis. The metaphor joins other warning signs, like the camel’s nose in the tent, give an inch and they’ll take a mile and slippery slope. It’s a favorite of writers, politicians and preachers who are prone to pompous grandiloquence to avoid entrapment and get out of hot water.

As a warning sign it explains the concept of ‘creeping normality, ’a type of amnesia where unnoticeable increments of change happen slowly while culture lures us in, bit by bit. Death by a thousand cuts. We smile all the way to the end.

Let’s pretend that the pot is the world and culture is the warm water in it. Then play like the fire under it represents change. Finally, let’s pretend we’re all frogs.

We slide off into the water nice and easy. Yeah, it’s a bit cool at first, but we get used to it. Now let’s keep turning up the heat, little by little. We never notice we’re being boiled. Such is the addictive nature of culture.

I’m at Starbuck’s, part of the ‘convenience culture’ that loves of all things drive-thru. A machine with a human voice takes my order and I queue up, number three in line.

From the lead car a hand emerges holding a cell phone. Another hand from the window holding a scanning device meets it. An instantaneous debit/credit transaction is conceived somewhere in the ether. Amazing.

The next car hands off a debit card and, like the other, another transaction’s born. It’s my turn.

The young clerk at the window has a large silver nose ring and green-ink bird designs on her forearm. What are these signs saying?

“Do you take checks?” I ask, playing with her mind.

“You kidding? This is drive-thru.” she snaps. I drop it.

I hand her a $5 bill. She studies the face of Lincoln and looks at me as if to say, “What’s this?”

I ask her what was with the cell and scanner in the previous car. “Where you been, mister? I scanned an app. Quick, easy, no hassle. Instant money. It’s a sign of the times. Get with it, trash that Blackberry, quit using cash. It’s so yesterday; plus, money’s dirty.”

“Dirty?’ Listen, there’s a looming Star Wars in the sky between America, China and Russia. What good’s your app when GPS is vaporized by killer satellites and the electrical grid goes dark? No ATM, no gas, no food, no cell. You’ll kiss Abe and Ben on the lips then, dirty or not.” I tell her she’s a boiling frog but doesn’t know it.

“Whatever,” she says and shrugs.

“Keep the change, you might need it.” She understands this.


Signs are everywhere. The ‘screen generation,’ pain clinics, technology, environmental, marijuana farms, you name it. Where’s it all leading? Is it too late to pluck the frog from the boiling caldron? Your guess is as good as mine.

But one thing I’m sure of: Only a fool will test the temperature of culture’s water with both feet.


Bud Hearn
May 21, 2019

Angola Prison Rodeo…an Adventure

It was a late-summer Sunday when eight of us pulled up to the gates of Angola State Prison, Angola, Louisiana. The notice read: “You are entering a penal institution,” a wakeup call for nerves. We were here to witness the annual Angola Prison Rodeo.

For over fifty years the prison has staged this rodeo. It’s sanctioned by the state and the ‘cowboys’ are the prisoners. It’s called, “Guts and Glory.” It promised to satisfy our lust for a break from the late-summer island doldrums.

We leave Baton Rouge in a white van and roll across 51 miles of desolate Delta landscape littered with dilapidated mobile homes and hulks of rusted-out cars. Two hours later we enter the gates of Angola Prison, gates laced with razor-sharp concertina wire.

A black sign with the smiling face of Warden Burl Cain welcomes us with these words: “If you wish to leave the premises, surrender all guns, knives, alcohol and contraband now.” We take no chances and tender the remains of the bucket of KFC, bones and all.

The prison is surrounded by lush green pastures of the Delta. Livestock graze peacefully, framed by miles of white rail fences. Small lakes filled with white pond birds complete the tranquil symmetry of the fields. The serenity disguises the reality of the treacherous institution where death-row and hopelessness co-exist inside. So surreal, like being an intruder in a Salvatore Dali landscape.

Inside the scene is chaotic. We’re greeted by what could be described as a prison bazaar. Long tables are filled with fried pig delicacies: Chittlins, cracklins and pigtails. A hungry crowd pushes and shoves its way into a wild ecstasy of feeding frenzy. Beyond, throngs of souvenir shoppers mingle among the cramped booths of itinerant vendors and petty hustlers hawking cheap trinkets and prison memorabilia.

Inside the arena the excitement is electric. A thick air of tension permeates the tight enclosure of plowed dirt. A 9-foot fence separates the prisoners, bulls and spectators. About 10,000 spectators roar and cheer while groups of Harley has-beens huddle in tight circles engaging in unintelligible utterances. The crowd bears a remarkable resemblance to the inmates. A bit unnerving.

Today’s ‘cowboys’ are corralled in a wire cage beneath the hospitality suite where prominent invitees and VIP’s of Warden Cain enjoy the absurdity. One wonders what it takes to ‘encourage’ volunteerism for these events. But this is Louisiana, where Huey P. Long is still worshipped by devout Cajuns.

This is no milquetoast rodeo. It’s the real thing. Inmates clothed in jeans and black and white striped jackets ride bulls, bucking broncs and barrel race bareback on wild ponies. There are no ‘winners’ here, only survivors.

The signature event finds four ‘cowboys’ seated at a card table all painted red, playing poker. An 1,800-pound bull with red horns impatiently waits in a cage about twenty feet away. The gate opens, the bull charges the table. Two bodies go airborne, landing with loud thuds in the soft, moist dirt. Two others sit there, frozen by fear. The bull snorts, charges again, but hits only the table. The buzzer rings, time’s up. The two remaining ‘cowboys’ share the $200 purse.

In another event a red poker chip is pasted to the head of a bull. A dozen or so ‘cowboys’ enter the ring. The object is to retrieve the poker chip from the head of the bull. Winner gets $200, a paltry sum for such a dangerous undertaking. One would wonder if spending a few weeks in the infirmary would be a good reason for volunteering for this spectacle.

The weirdest event is when three untamed broncs are roped together and six ‘cowboys’ attempt to ride them. It is a scene of indescribable delirium as men and horses run wild in wide maddening circles with no chance of success.

Despite all the brutish display called a rodeo, the crowd shows a felicitous empathy for the safety and success of the ‘cowboys.’ The only break in the drama occurs when a fellow in a red Elvis outfit brings out three sheep dogs ridden by tiny monkeys wearing cowboy outfits and chasing wild goats. The laughter is too much to bear.

The rodeo finally ends. The ‘cowboys’ are transformed into prisoners again while we depart in the humid dusk of a declining Delta day. But for a few hours our lives and voices intertwined and fused into one as we all participated in this wild, unpredictable spectacle of life called a rodeo.


Bud Hearn
May 17, 2019