Digressions of a Dilettante

Digressions of a Dilettante
Vignettes of Inanity by Bud Hearn

Thursday, March 28, 2019

The State of Things to Come


America is in turmoil. It’s ungovernable. Order is fugitive. Dysfunction reigns. A comedy of Democratic dodos. The solution? Create more states.

But how? Annex Mexico? It’s too late. Done. Over. We’re talking mental states. Democracy for the mental demographic. Aggregate, collate, dominate. Divide and conquer. Perfect integrations, ideal for election campaign strategies. Easier for politicians to isolate, pimp and pander.

With technology it’s quick and easy. An online E-Meter assessment and registration process will assign citizens to virtual “states” coinciding with their particular mental proclivity. A seamless process, egalitarian, brilliant. Migration unnecessary.

It begins with the State of Confusion. It’s a wild, lawless state resembling an asylum. All rooms are padded. Lawn labyrinths are filled with disoriented lunatics who run helter-skelter in circles, looking for an exit. All citizens eventually pass through this state.

Then there’s the State of Illusion. It’s a vast landscape filled with strobe lights, magnifying mirrors, carnival masks and monopoly money. Aged Hollywood has-beens, down on their luck, advertise Reverse Mortgages on TV. Washed-up bankers and defrocked evangelists detox here.

There’s the state of Obfuscation. It resembles a cavernous library filled with legal codes and tax dictates. Lawyers and lobbyists live here. Legerdemain is practiced for proficiency from mahogany podiums positioned beside massive Corinthian columns. A certain green sleaze oozes from the walls.

The State of Manipulation is a lovely garden greenhouse where fruit from the Tree of Unbridled Ambition is not forbidden. Politicians, stockbrokers and all journalists enjoy a congenial atmosphere. A Masters Degree of Fabrication is available to further elevate earnings and prominence prior to moving to the State of Reinvention.

The State of Reinvention is an anomaly unique to America. It resembles a penal colony open to the public. It’s a colossal clothing, cosmetic and costume emporium. It distributes born-again tracts. Transients receive new identities after clinical psychiatrists administer shock treatments to cleanse their minds, eliminate empathy and blot out remembrance of all things past.

The State of Delusion resembles a derelict Sunday morning fraternity house. Mindless old men stagger in catatonic stupors, waiting for their financial ship to arrive, convinced that all women find them attractive. Tarnished trophies of former exploits feed the fantasy, affirming a life that once was.

Then there’s the State of Presumption, or the State of Perpetual Youth, where Medicare-for-all pays for all things cosmetic and artificial. Doctors skilled in the use of silicone, Botox and joint replacements proliferate. Beauty contests are held daily.

The State of Acquisition includes insecure young women looking for purses, and rich old men looking for nurses. The men are recent transferees from the State of Delusion. It resembles a giant mall. Cash registers chi-ching incessantly like the tolling of church bells. China subsidizes this state.

Ah, the State of Passion, a surreal scene modeled on the Hollywood set of Tarantino’s “From Dusk till Dawn.’ Attar of roses and wisteria blossoms float on gentle breezes. The air is pregnant with amour fou…obsessive passion. Nighttime rules. Moon and stars set the scene. Lovers recoil in horror at daylight. It reveals reality. It extinguishes the fires of blind passion into rubbles of cold ashes. Loudspeakers blast, ad nauseam, Love me tender, love me true. At intervals screams of rejected lovers pierce the air like wailing hyenas when daylight dawns and infatuation flags.

The State of Unassuaged Dissatisfaction is the domain of sports addicts, including bridge players and golfers. They gnash over the State of Scorecards. Never satisfied. They torment others with lamentations of their obsessions. Who cares? They’re the apotheosis of boredom. The scarlet letter, “A,” is tattooed on their foreheads.

Yes, there’s the State of Redistribution. No one works here. Residents are fat and happy, happy. They shake hands palms up like politicians and teenagers. They’re related to the Biblical genus “Horseleech” whose two daughters cry daily, “Give, give.” They watch Duck Dynasty reruns.

There’s the State of Seclusion. It’s run by nuns, Our Ladies of Perpetual Humiliation. It’s a desolate landscape of rocky escarpments, pockmarked by dark caves. Want a roommate? Ok, try an ascetic monk. Clothed in sackcloth and ashes, the minutes creep slowly by. The air is thick with repentance. Residents renunciate all carnality and mutilate themselves with stones. Yogic oms and failed nirvanas reverberate from the canyon walls and die silently into the barren desert sands. It’s a solemn hell. Stays are short.

The last state is the State of Conclusion, or State of Eternal Bliss. It’s decorated with colorful silk flowers. Humans pass this way horizontally, lying “in state,” so to speak. They have stitched-on smiles that simulate relief. Organ music serenades with Nearer My God to Thee.

Moving? No problem. An Electropsychometer consultant will switch your ankle bracelet transponder and off you go. But where? Check out the State of Resignation…plenty of company there.

OK, just an idea. You have a better one? America…what a state we’re in!



Bud Hearn
March 28, 2019

Wednesday, March 27, 2019

The Magic of Wisteria


Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old Time is still a-flying: And this same flower that smiles today, tomorrow will be dying.” Poet, Robert Herrick (1591-1674)


In our front yard are three tall pine trees. Springtime enshrouds them in vast array of purple wisteria.

Like flowering nooses, the gnarled wisteria vines ascend skyward to the top of the trees. Twisted and contorted, they grip the hapless trees with the unyielding embrace of a passionate lover. Lavender bouquets droop pendulously from these ancient vines. Tiny dewdrops of the morning drip from the delicate petals. No artist’s canvas could contain a scene more intensely serene.

The sun bathes the blossoms in a brilliant light. It caresses them softly with a Mother’s loving touch. They appear poised to burst out singing in nature’s silent symphony.

Sidewalk strollers stop and stare at the dangling display of color. They relish air infused with the fragrant attar of wisteria, nectar of the gods. Its indescribable sweetness floats freely, wafting its way among shrubs and trees. Tender breezes tease the bouquets into movements ever so slight…nature’s foreplay in motion. Side to side they sway, swooning in a sensuous dance.

Every morning I walk out to retrieve the paper. Today, the wisteria’s aromatic presence is arresting. I stop, enchanted by its essence. The wisteria garlands dangle, like locks of lavender braids adorning the hair of angels and small girls at a May Day picnic. A stranger approaches and stops, captivated by the dangling garlands of beauty. We smile and nod hello.

The stranger says wisteria reminds her of love. She declares that wisteria, like love, defies description; that words are blunt instruments, inadequate to convey the quintessential quality of its fragrance, much less describe that of love. To understand either, the veils of mystery must be removed through experience. She asks my opinion. I reply, “It’s early, and I’m incapable of discussing matters of love without first having a cup of coffee.” We laugh. She walks on.

I linger, enjoying the moment. Even before coffee, I know it’s impossible to seize the scent of wisteria. It’s a spirit, and like all spirits, it floats freely upon the breezes. We can only receive it, not restrain it, nor retain it. Whoever has experienced love knows that when it’s selfishly possessed, it withers. Love, like wisteria, must be free to scale its own heights.

I stand beneath the vines, pondering the stranger’s symbolism of wisteria and love. Neither asks, “Who’s worthy to receive?” For wisteria and love are ‘free’ to all and are magical wherever they blossom. Both are beautiful beyond comprehension. I know there are infinitely more similarities, but the coffee, the coffee!

Yet I stand there, transfixed, unable to leave the mystical scene. Suddenly, the lavender nursery appears to be alive. Bumble bees swarm in enthusiastic delight, flitting from one petal to the next in a paean of impassioned frenzy. Perhaps bees have a better clue about wisteria and love than we know. I watch the spectacle, mesmerized, wishing I were a bee. The coffee can wait.

We once cut some wisteria for a flower arrangement. Our daughter, The Gardener of Eden, advised against it. She warned, “It’ll wilt and turn putrid.” We ignored her admonition. But she was right. The next morning it lay limp, hanging over the lip of the vase. Its fragrance and its beauty had faded. The vine is its source of life. Separated, it becomes a memory, useless, a dried flower to press between the pages of a book.

Sadly, the wisteria is ephemeral. Its life cycle is relatively short…a couple of weeks at best. It gives all it has, while it has it. Then as quickly as it blooms, it wilts. Its blossoms wither, let go and are scattered by the wind. They lie silently upon the lawn like a bluish-lilac carpet…as beautiful in death as in life.

I reluctantly retreat inside for coffee and recall lines from Dr. Jones’ poem: “Love gives, and while it gives it lives; and while it lives it gives.” I think about the stranger, about the spirit of wisteria, about the spirit of love. Perhaps too profound so early in the morning.

By the second cup I conclude that we have a short window of time to enjoy the magic of wisteria, and maybe love, too. It’s best to experience them now, before the opportunity passes.

Wisteria and love wait for no one!


Bud Hearn
March 27, 2019

Thursday, March 21, 2019

The Leaves Let Go


March opens the door to Spring. It’s the month when the Great Silent Voice speaks: “Time’s up, release without remorse and make way for the new.”

Nature has a different set of rules for the live oaks that canopy the islands of coastal Georgia. They’re programmed to shed their leaves in Spring, not in the Fall. It disguises our winters. We like that.

But now, last year’s leaves have run their course. Their grip on the Great Mother oak relaxes. One by one, without complaint or coaxing, they begin their short but final journey ‘home.’ Mission accomplished, job completed. Now freed from their work, the transients collectively head south for their permanent retirement.

The enormous oak Titans suddenly stand naked and exposed. But only for a few days. Their spindly skeletons stretch skyward, communing with the winds. Redwing blackbirds give stark contrast to the sky as they bark orders from the barren branches.

Sunlight shines profusely on the warm ground below. The Great Silent Voice speaks again, “Make haste, my small children.” The vegetation undergrowth below immediately springs into life. Somehow it knows its hour in the sun will be short.

Nature is consistent, operating a tightly organized process of life. It makes all appointments on time. Hard on the heels of the leaves’ departure, small green hints of life, barely visible to the eye, begin incipient life. Almost overnight the oaks emerge fully clothed, bathed in a verdant wardrobe.

In a short time, the fallen leaf carpet becomes compost. The Voice speaks softly to these fallen workers, “Sleep on, you have served well. It’s time for another to bear the burden. For you to cling beyond your appointed time would render you a dull, lusterless relic of the past, an antique of a bygone season.”

Leaves listen, they never argue. They instinctively know that new life requires them to move on. They’re innately schooled in photosynthesis, knowing that when their green morphs to brown, their ability to synthesize food is terminally impaired. They’ve become useless. Unlike some politicians, they know when to say, “Enough.”

Oak leaves don’t think. But if they could, would they have a self-esteem problem? Would they look around and see billions of other leaves and say, “Oh, of what value am I, just one among so many, and a little one at that?”

And if the Mother Tree could answer, it might say, “If not for each of you, I could not exist.” Is this answer sufficient to solve low self-esteem? One wonders. After all, there is a time and a season for everything.

Perhaps to assuage the hearts of the fallen leaves, the Titan might say, “Consider the acorns, my children. They also have to let go, to drop, to die. Somehow they’re programmed to know that there’s a squirrel waiting to bury them so they can again take root downward and bear fruit upward. Trust me, My ways are perfect.

The March breezes carry the whisper of the Great Silent Voice as it speaks tender assurances to the leaves. “As you were not anxious in the day of your birth, be not anxious in the day of your demise. Well done, good and faithful leaves.”

**********

Mystics might find a metaphor, maybe even a simile, in contemplation of a leaf’s final ‘let go.’ After all, it’s a one and done, its first and its last.

If metaphors could be extrapolated, they might lead us to the conclusion that our very own final drop could be an exhilarating and incredible journey home. Personally, I am persuaded that our own final ‘let go’ will be a noble and exciting experience.


Bud Hearn
March 21, 2019



Wednesday, March 13, 2019

Greeting Cards


Last week I had a birthday. So what, you say? Everyone has birthdays. Yeah, but mine was special.

Ok, ok, I know. Everybody’s birthday is special. But everybody doesn’t have a birthday where you can take a couple of 7’s, jumble them up any way you want and they end up indicating the same number: 14. You can read it forwards or backwards, it yields the same result.

It was not one of those ‘Whoopee’ birthdays, the kind like when we turned 16 and finally got a driver’s license. Such birthdays are special, even exciting, maybe not for the State Patrol or the public in general, but to have a driver’s license, now that’s a ‘Whoopee’ birthday if ever there was one, a real reason to shout.

Now I’m not writing this to make you feel remorse for being remiss in not having me inked on your birthday calendar. I really didn’t expect recognition, and, of course, I didn’t get any. I forgive you. Forgiveness makes one holy, or so it’s said. It’s nice to feel holy once in a while.

But even after the fact, I don’t want you to pity me with the score of double 7’s. You have your own cross to bear this year. And even if your number isn’t a twin, you are getting closer than you think.

It’s always good to recognize this fact and begin practicing being holy. Oh, you won’t make many friends with this endeavor, but you’ll experience a quiet smugness within when you spout off about the state of the union or politics in general. You might even forgive yourself for judgmental attitudes when you look at how the government is spending your tax money. Oh, yes, being holy offers many unseen benefits.

Moving on. My birthday was not a total flop, given the fact that no family member used my credit card to purchase some special gift that they were sure I wanted. How many times does one have to answer the same question every year: “What do you want for your birthday?” You know the answer as well as I do. You need nothing, want less, and pray that if they do get you something, it’s sweet and edible.

I did get a good number of greeting cards. Now greeting cards come in many forms. Go to CVS or the card shop and look through the racks. A card for every person, living or dead. And many of the words inside pretty cards are dead themselves, mere empty platitudes so syrupy that you want to you-know-what.

You wonder what a person’s life is like who creates these kinds of cards. You imagine them huddled up on a work-at-home job in the middle of Iowa, suffering through interminable blizzards, tornadoes or dust storms. You don’t need this kind of cheer.

And then there are the ‘funny’ ones, cards that really say what the signer means at long distance and not to your face. Now here’s one, for example: There’s a photo of a very elderly woman in bed, her hair in curlers, looking like she’d had persimmons for breakfast. The card reads: “At your age, there’s one thing you don’t have to worry about…dying young.” They’d never say these words to your face.

I overlook the surreptitious meaning and look at another card. Here’s one with a fellow polishing what appears to be a 1952 Chevy wheel. It reads: “Better test the brakes…the hill you’re going over looks wicked.” Now that’s a kind way to say what I already know…that I’m going downhill fast.

And on and on they go. But look, I’m thankful for these cards, no matter what the sender’s ulterior motive might have been. But they present a moral and mental dilemma to my aging soul. That’s right, another burden to bear, as if double 7’s was not enough.

Explain, you say. Simple, I’m conflicted as to how long I must keep these cards without pitching them. What’s acceptable protocol for discarding someone’s greeting card, whether birthday or other occasion? I search Google and the Scriptures. No help. To pitch them unceremoniously is like throwing friendship under the bus.

Such are the trials of aging. But after a week I’m beginning to think every birthday should be a ‘Whoopee’ one, irrespective of the numbers. We only go around once. Let’s make the best of it.

And you’ll never know what I did with your greeting card.


Bud Hearn
March 13, 2019

Monday, March 4, 2019

A Jump-Start


If you’re wondering why the Weakly Post has not been faithfully adding to your already-clogged in-box, it’s because its battery has been dead. It has nothing to do with congressional hearings, trade talks or government shutdowns.

**********

The other day I needed to use our extra, backup car. It has been parked inactively for about a month. Most batteries give up the ghost after that time of inactivity, but you know how time passes so fast that a month is like a few days. The only sound coming from under the hood was that ominous click, click, click. Dead battery.

So, I fire up the pickup and hook up the cables, red to red, black to black. In no time the engine fires up, good as new. Almost. It lasts less than five minutes. Upon mechanical inspection it was determined that the battery had permanently expired.

I recite this simple experience to say that we should never be without cables to jumpstart dead batteries. Now to the real motive behind this stupid event…overcoming the flu.

For almost the entire month of February the plague of flu locusts has invaded our home. If you’ve experienced this dread malady, you know the consequences. If not, take it from me, avoid all human contact till the scourge is over-past.

Several things happen while in this catatonic state. Inactivity takes over. First, sitting in a comfortable chair beats most other alternatives, like walking the dog or even cooking a meal. All the while your battery is losing power, draining away silently into the stale ether of your home.

Next, you sit so long it becomes a way of life. All interest in the president’s character drains out and leaves you with a dead state of mind. You begin to have mental images. You see yourself sitting in a row of rocking chairs with other brain-dead rockers at Camellia Manor, placed there in the morning, hustled off to your room for naps. Dinner on a tv tray is the highlight of the day. Such mental images do a lot to remind us to start up our batteries often.

The downward spiral is not over yet. By now you’ve lost all interest in reading, the news is irrelevant to you, and even the comedy of Democratic presidential hopefuls is no longer entertaining. You’ve been to this carnival before. Mandates and promises of something-for-all and hints of future reparations to all disenfranchised persons, living and dead, no longer touch you. You don’t figure to be around much any longer.

But then one day you wake up. You feel strangely new again. You wonder if you’ve been raptured or transcended to Nirvana. You’re afraid to be too optimistic, dashed hopes are worse than no hopes at all. You’re hungry again. No, you’re ravenous now. Nothing is safe that has calories printed on the label. You feel the battery is charged. But wait.

You fuel up, determined to get back the wind your lungs have been missing for so many weeks. You bound out of the house, intent on attacking the sidewalk with a brisk walk. You make ten steps, collapse on the front door steps. Your battery is dead.

Such is the plague of flu this year. It has sapped our discipline, sitting has broadened our rear ends and deadened our desires for engagement in life. We need a jump start badly. Unfortunately, there is no quick fix. Discipline has drained out of our batteries and they’re dead.

Research shows it takes about 60 days to develop a new habit, but just a few days to lose all incentive. This is what the flu has done to the Weakly Post. So today I am pounding the keyboard in hopes incentive will return.

Getting re-started is never easy. As Nike says, you just gotta do it. There is no quick jumpstart.

**********

Here’s hoping you’ve avoided this plague. If you have, this email will be as meaningless ramblings of an old man. If not, hook up your cables to something that has life and fire up your battery up again.


Bud Hearn
March 4, 2019