Digressions of a Dilettante

Digressions of a Dilettante
Vignettes of Inanity by Bud Hearn

Monday, May 31, 2021

The Poppies Blow


Neptune Park, St. Simons Island, Georgia.

In this place for many years multitudes of a cross-section of diverse Americans celebrate Taps at Twilight in remembrance of Memorial Day. We come to pay tribute to those who have died in service to our country, as well as honor those living who have served in our preservation of liberty. It’s a humble and solemn occasion.

 In Flanders fields the poppies blow

 Between the crosses, row on row
     
That mark our places, and in the sky, 

The larks, still bravely singing, fly, 

Scarce heard amid the guns below.”

The annual event is organized by the St. Simons Island Rotary Club. The Golden Isles Community Band resurrects John Phillip Sousa for a short concert of his militaristic music. We can imagine him directing the band. The enthusiastic music is rousing. We march along with them, waving our tiny American flags in time with the music. 

Picnics are everywhere. Smoke from barbeque wafts across the lawn. Our own ravenous crowd usually numbers about twenty-five. We gather around several tables covered with red checkered tablecloths and feast on fried chicken, sandwiches of cucumber, pimento cheese and pineapple, all on white bread (the edges removed in true Southern tradition). There’s more: deviled eggs, guacamole dip, fruit and unlimited desserts.

Throngs of patriotic Americans pack the entire lawn of Neptune Park. We face the rotunda where engraved bricks with the names of the beloved fallen remind us of our heritage. Standing alone in the center is a flagpole. Our flag, the enduring symbol of national unity, is alive.  It waves freely in the breeze. It’s the central focus of all eyes.

As the day drifts down towards dusk, a Spirit floats on the coastal breeze and moves among the crowd.  It swells, then hushes, then blows again. A profound stillness descends upon the multitude. Laughing voices of children ring in the distance. They add new life to the solemnity of the gathering. 

“We are the dead; short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.”

This same Spirit blows amid the graves of patriots everywhere. It’s we, the living, who are restless. The honored dead lie peacefully in the earth now. Their names, dates and events mark their final resting places. What survive are their names, our memories and the ideal of Freedom. The Freedom that beats in every living heart was purchased by the blood of our countrymen. This same Freedom, we pray, will continue to survive long after we, the living, are gone. We have our names; we have only borrowed the dust.

Like our warriors, we live for a purpose…a common devotion for freedom and brotherhood.  We hear this theme from every speaker who ever came to memorialize the occasion.

At twilight we witness the Retirement of the Colors. The crowd is breathlessly silent. The flag is lowered, gently folded, itself soon to be laid to rest in the darkness of the night.

A mournful trumpet then sounds the three simple notes of ‘Taps,’ or Lights Out or Gone the Sun. In the distance its fading echo descends gently upon the declining day.

Three simple notes close this day, but another three notes will renew the morrow. Like death and resurrection, tomorrow’s bugle call is Reveille, accompanied by a cannon’s retort. It’s a rousing ‘get-em-up’ tune as the flag is again raised atop the naked flagpole.  It will again personify our nation’s glorious past, its hopeful future and our enduring commitment to freedom.     

So we will say goodnight to the Spirit here. The day is finished.  Picnic baskets, tables and chairs are packed, and the crowd disperses, somber in the memory of the occasion. Yet it departs unsettled, knowing that our nation’s struggle for freedom continues.

“Take up our quarrel with the foe!

 To you from failing hands we throw

 The torch; be yours to hold it high!

 If ye break faith with us who die

 We shall not sleep…”

The spirits of our departed comrades are watching. Will our generation join them in the preservation of our ideals?

“In Flanders fields the poppies blow…”

And in Neptune Park on Memorial Day, the voices of our children’s spirits sing the sweet song of Liberty.

 

 

Friday, May 21, 2021

There are Days


There are days…and we’ve had plenty of them.

                                                                                                                                               * * *

There are days to be sure.  Another one just showed up. We didn’t ask for it, but here it is.   Only one way to escape it. You ready for that?

Days have been coming so regularly we take them for granted. We greet them with a ho hum shrug.  And there’s really not much of a way to prepare for what’s coming. Days come wrapped in a surprise package. Mysteries without many if any clues. 

All days are different. Some are bombs, looking for a place to explode. You might be the target today. Others come dressed as misers, casting a few coins your way like you were a beggar in Calcutta. But no day shows up empty-handed. Just breathing counts for something. 

There’re days that seem to fly right by

And days that seem to crawl.

We take them as they come our way,

The blessings and curses all.

I’ll bet you’re having a day right now. Maybe you get up today, saying, “Tough day ahead. I’ll get ready, eat some nails for breakfast.” Only to find out that you forget the hammer, and before the day ends, it’s you who gets nailed.   

Some days I rob Peter to pay Paul. A brilliant idea pops into my head. I’ll call the government. No answer. I try alchemy, it’s worked before. I rub two nickels together, hoping to get a dime. Sparks fly, a penny pops out.  Like life, sometimes just enough is a windfall.  

But it’s a better outcome than yesterday’s experience. This fellow is boasting about his religion, his integrity, a nebulous concept subjectively applicable to the moment at hand. We shake hands. I get only four fingers back, missing the one with my gold family crest ring.

There are days when I like to dream of nothing but nonsense. It wakes up my brain cells, fantasy takes over. Strange, but with just a cursory view of today’s news, I realize that my dream puts me on par with everybody else.

You might decide to read the news today. So much controversy, everything so confusing. You read about the woke pot boiling over, academics running wild in the streets, rewriting history and the dictionary with confusing definitions, like sex and gender.

In high school you were considered an expert on sex and gender. Grow up. You were young then, things were simple. But concepts change. Now you discover that everyone is confused about who they are. You thought it was either this way or that, no confusion. Birth decided it. Wrong. Now you’re no longer quite certain.  

There were days when four genders ruled—masculine, feminine, neuter and common. You never did know what common was.  Now you are shocked to find there are eleven genders, and non-binary is total Greek to you.  You question if you’ve been wrong about yourself all these years. You take a peek. Nothing has changed. You relax. 

There are days you don’t need the news to confound your feeble brain. Other things do as good a job. I had one of those days recently.

“What are you doing?” she asks, slight emphasis on ‘what.’

“Having a lemonade,”   

“Out of that?” Emphasis on ‘that.’

“These new water glasses are cool.”

“That’s a flower vase, you idiot.” Heavy emphasis on ‘idiot.’

The supremacy of male ego is a fragile thing indeed.

Then there are days when nothing goes wrong and others when nothing goes right. Days when you find yourself in a thicket of thorns and later become a thorn in a thicket of people. Some days you feel all alone, others when even your solitude is too crowded. 

There are days we envy the household dog, and some days we are the dog, fleas and all. Some days we’re squeezed in the financial furnace of affliction, a beggar amidst great riches.

There are days when ambition’s ravenous appetite runs stark naked wild. It feasts upon itself, appeased only in debauchery with like-minded companions. It’s a hungry tide, gobbling up the shore’s sands. Common sense is its doormat. 

There are days when we wake up needing a nap, days when our yawns are caverns, capable of swallowing us whole. Some days, Covid notwithstanding, we mask up, when false face must hide what false heart doth know.

There are days when we cast long shadows,

And days when we cast none at all.

Days of futility as we chase them.

And days when behind us they fall.

 * * *

Whatever your day might hold, may your shadow always be long.

 

 Bud Hearn

May 21, 2021   

 

Friday, May 14, 2021

Dusting Erasers....Back to the Future

 

Walker Percy, once wrote, "(in) spite of the great scientific and technological advances, man has not the faintest idea of who he is or what he is doing."  It doesn’t take much living to figure this out.   

* * *

It’s that time of year ~ Graduation ~ when our educational systems release their inmates to the general public. Beware – everything is in danger!

It was the last day of school, May 1955. I remember it well. It was the day I escaped the dreaded wooden paddle. You remember that ‘corrective’ device, right? The board, the one with three holes bored into it for effect. Apparently I had no idea of who I was, and a reminder of that fact was about to be administered to a tender part of my anatomy. For ‘good measure,’ you understand.

I remember this because my daddy told the teacher, “Honey, the boy is just not right. That’s all I can say.”  He always called women ‘Honey.’ Either he couldn’t remember their names, or there was something more going on. We lived in the town that coined the concept of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’ She apparently bought the compliment and didn’t beat me within an inch of my life. Threats were always measured in inches in those days. Such reasoning remains obscure. 

Looking back, I don’t think I ever thanked my father for this act of kindness.  It must have been hard for him to admit that the imbecile gene ran in our family. But, I digress.

It’s a sultry South Georgia morning, hot and humid. A group of us sit outside on the back steps of the library, beating off boredom. We dust the felt erasers on the brick walls and on each other's heads. Imbeciles do this. Rectangular white remnants on the red bricks are our rebellious graffiti. The chalk marks are what remains of black-board wisdom the teachers had tried to cram into our granite-crusted brains. All dust. Metaphors are alien creatures to youth. 

Students today don’t have to endure the chore of dusting erasers.  It’s all digital now.  At the click of a keystroke, instantly, another year is deleted, sent hurtling into cyber space. We threw erasers at one another…laptops are more valuable than erasers.

So here we are, waiting for the final bell to ring, signaling that school is over for the year.   Summertime. Sweet freedom. I’m 13, graduating from the 8th grade, soon to be in the bottom class of high school. I wonder what the future holds. At least I knew my gender.

Time marches on. On another hot May-day, our high school graduation occurs.  It’s tough to figure who’s the happiest, teachers or students.  My best friend and I drive the open-air jeep with no seat belts down to the creek to swim. It’s a bitter-sweet day. One thing’s over, another begins. Now we’re about to become college freshmen. The bottom again, the future still a mystery.

College graduation ends in May, too. Somehow I pop out of the Higher Ed pipeline and emerge in the ‘real world.’  I toast with beer, not a swim. The bright lights of the big city beckon. The diploma is my meal ticket to a fabulous future.  So I think. Only I’m in the bottom of the next class---the Job Market. I keep wondering why the future is so amorphous.

In time the crisp diploma yellows. It’s relegated to a scrapbook. Nobody cares about it anymore. I move on without it. The realities of life assault me: job, marriage, children and mortgages. Summer vacations become occasional weekend escapes. The barefoot summers of youth vanish. I keep wondering what happened to the future I envisioned.

Years come and go. Age slows some things down, but life gains clarity. The fond memories of the Mays past make me kick back, savor some sweet tea and blow the brown gnats away. Even now the future remains a diffused mirror, uncertain of what’s looking back at you.

It’s funny, now that I think about it, that this one particular day remains fresh in my memory. The dust of those erasers held the essence of a whole schoolyear. With a few slaps on the wall, it’s gone. Poof. Vanished. Over. The whole year, wiped clean. 

A lot of things have changed since that May in 1955. The red-brick school of my 8th grade has disappeared. Only memories remain.

* * *

It was a long time ago when we dusted erasers there. We wondered about the future, only to now discover that it ends in dust, just like residue of those erasers, and too soon. Much too soon.

 

Bud Hearn

May 14, 2021