While camping during the week in
September, they encountered several
fellow, senior citizen campers who
stopped and talked and talked with-
out ever coming up for air and they
wondered if these people were not
allowed to speak on their jobs until
retirement and decided to talk their
heads off with fellow campers such
as themselves who were sitting in-
nocently outside their travel trail-
ers but now were a captive audience
to opinionated blowhards who evident-
ly were getting everything off their
chests, which had been accumulat-
ing for forty or fifty years on the
assembly line or in a cubicle or
wherever. The couple thought that
perhaps it was time just to snarl
instead of smile when the old folks
hobbled by.

They locked the travel
trailer door for the night
feeling snug and safe and
wandered back to their
backpacking days along
distant, deserted trails
and how easily they crawled
into the tent for the night
without fear or fright.

The breeze blew from the west;
the clouds hid below the horizon;
the sun set in a glorious fest;
the devil’s storm blew on the horizon
shaking and rattling all the nests;
calamity came and left destruction,
and desolation for all the rest
on the paradise islands of perdition.

She walked a beautiful dog through
the campground. We said the dog
was beautiful. She came over to our

site to tell us the dog’s story and
I made the mistake of mentioning that
I am a retired minister. We were

planning on kayaking on the glisten-
ing, beckoning lake next to the camp-
ground. After the first hour of relig-

ious tales to knock our socks off
(She actually said that.), we knew
we were in it for the long haul. After

the second hour of incredible stories
of how she fell in love with her hus-
band, who was conspicuously absent,

I needed to relieve myself but felt
awkward excusing myself in the midst
of her “knock your socks off” life

story, so I just crossed my legs and
gritted my teeth. During the third
hour I entered the realm of the gods

suffering two eternal punishments
at once as an eagle picked at my
liver while I pushed a boulder up

a mountain only to have it roll
back smacking me in the head. I
was left with a shredded liver,

a bump on the head and a bulging
bladder. We all smiled, hugged
and as she left, I turned to

my wife and said, “Forget the
kayaking. Bump on the head and
shredded liver or not, I need a

stiff drink, but first a pee,”
as I made a mad dash to the
bathhouse.

*Thanks to Jim Berbiglia for the title.

The day broke sunny
With the prediction of
High 70’s. We put the
Kayaks on the vehicle,
Hitched the vehicle to
The camper and got
Ready to go, but then
The fog rolled in and
I thought I heard it call
My name, beckoning
Me, warning me? We
Waited an hour; the fog
Lifted silently except for
The sound of the breeze
In the trees. Maybe we’ll
Wait a while longer; we
Have the time.

The dimmer switch for the down-
stairs’ bathroom started going bad
two years ago. Once in a while it

wouldn’t click on when pushed.
As time passed, the dimmer got
worse, not clicking on much at

all. It taunted those who wished
to use the downstairs bathroom.
They would push and push and

push until there was the inform-
ative click and then they would
adjust the dimmer to the amount

of light desired or they could
stumble and fumble their way
across the bathroom in the dark

to flip the switch next to the
bedroom door. Recently, he start-
ed having nightmares about the

dimmer taunting him, daring him
to turn it on or replace it with
an ordinary light switch and mock-

ing him when he got an electric
shock for not remembering to turn
off the electricity. Finally, unable

to stand it anymore, he purchased
a switch, remembered to turn off
the electricity, put on the little,

camp headlamp and replaced the
dimmer saying to the now dead-as-
a-doornail dimmer, “See, you

can’t get the best of me.” He
then said to his wife in a tone
of self-satisfied congratulations,

“Darling, I replaced the dimmer
just like you asked me to.”

The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round….

Pushing my Granddaughter and loving the walk in the park, zoo, garden…

Waving goodbye as she boarded the school bus the first time…

Meeting the bus from High School…

Hoping to see the bus leaving for College…

Knowing the bus will soon be coming for me.

The tree trimmer came
and flew up the trees.
I watched like a kid at the circus
marveling at the flying trapeze.

He then repelled down
those now trimmed trees.
I watched in amazement;
he made it look like a breeze.

When he was done
I told him I was awe-struck;
he shrugged kind of embarrassed
and just said, “Oh, shucks.”

It’s nice when someone
of such outstanding skills
modestly demurs
without any false frills.

He said he was
just doing his job.
I said he was an artist
and gave him a sincere nod.

There is a difference between
controlling people and controlling

one’s environment he tells people
when they think he is a control freak.

He has no need to control people,
in fact, it’s morally repugnant to

him even to think about controlling
people. He has enough trouble control-

ling himself, but, sometimes control-
ling one’s environment, like control-

ling a line break which entails break-
ing up words (as he just did four

lines in a row, hopefully at approved
places more often than not, but, still

it is the poet’s prerogative) entails
negotiating with others who might be

impinging on that environment. To wit,
losing control over one’s living space

to relatives. He leaves it to you to
fill in the blanks with personal

experiences. He can’t wrap his brain
around the idea of driver-less cars.

Why, he asks himself. Hands off the
wheel? Are you kidding? Friends tell

him that when the time comes, he
should sit in the back seat of the

driver-less car so as not to grab
the wheel and make real trouble for

himself and others. THE BACK SEAT, he
screams to himself. See the difference?

“Sometimes when you are really sure
you are right and can argue it eloquently,
you need to take a breath, see the bigger
picture and simply back off demurely
as hard as that may be,”
he said, thinking don’t do as I do
but as I say so easily.