The man learned how to drive back in the
day before there was driver’s training. His
dad started him off in vacant parking lots
and then, when his dad thought he was

ready for the road, took him on back
roads and side streets. His dad told him
that a car out of control is a killing
machine and that we are here to save

life not take it. He would have added
a little philosophy of self-interest
by quoting an ad “The life you save
may be your own,” if it had been around

then. His dad also told him, “Ever
and always — drive defensively.” The
third thing his dad told him was, “The
purpose of driving was simply to go

from point A to point B and but it’s not
racing in the Brickyard.” The fourth thing
was, “Keep one car length distance for
every ten miles per hour of speed be-

tween you and the car in front.” That
training has served the man well. When
the man is out on the road and sees
the crazy driving and the recent

phenomenon of “road rage,” he thinks
about how his dad might not ever have
been considered “The King of the Road,”
(He wasn’t into country-western.) but

could have been the King of Driver’s Ed.
Oh, and the King of Life Lessons. Oh,
and the inspiration for The Bee Gee’s,
“Stayin’ Alive.” Well, maybe not the

last one. His dad was more into the
French Impressionist composers.

Their voices were the same
but their faces and their
heads (some bald, some
with toupees, some with
dyed hair) were much
older for the PBS fund-
raiser and he loved hearing
their hits from many years
ago and he wondered what
all those singers had been
doing through the years to
make ends meet or as Soupy
Sales used to say, “If you
can’t make ends meet, try
vegetables.” And he thought
that Vegetable Soupy was
way ahead of the day in
recommending micronutrients.
And he hadn’t thought of
Soupy Sales since about
the time those singers
were making hits and had
full heads of natural hair.

He knocked on
the door at 8
p.m. It was
still light
out. He didn’t
think it was
too late. He
had tried
earlier
and no
one
was
home.

No one came to
the door. He
called their
names. The
man came
to the
door
half-
dressed

— a man trans-
formed into a
fiend, a snarl-
ing, slobber-
ing thing
he didn’t
recognize.

The man made threatening
statements, slammed
the door and he
heard the man,
through
the open
window,
say to
his wife
in an
almost
giddy,
hyena
voice,

“How was that?” He shouted back,
“How was that? How was that?
What is that?”

The fiend came back to
the door and snarled,
“What did you say?”
He said that
this didn’t
make any
sense.

The man snarled, “You’re
the friend of a
man I don’t
like and I
just
tolerated
you,

so go back across the creek
and DON’T COME BACK!”

He was then afraid
that the man might
become physically
violent. He went
back across the
creek.

He had been told but
he didn’t know for him-
self that the man
was emotionally
sick and he
didn’t know,
until that
moment,

how sick the man really
was. This went beyond
avoiding a fool in
his folly — way
beyond.

He wouldn’t knock
on that door again.

What was it Bush
got wrong about
“Fool me once,”?

He wouldn’t be
getting this
one

—–    wrong.

Now it is the last time
for me to ask you if you love me —
a time I say is the last one
and then you simply make fun
and my only wish is to flee.

And then you blush
and ask me if I love you —
I’m thinking this is a game
and commitment I should feign.
But I gush, “My love for you is true.”

*rhyme scheme from the poem
On the Hill-Side by Radclyffe Hall
at Poem-A-Day, 8/25/2019

Fools rush in where angels fear
to tread, know thyself, the un-
examined life is not worth living,

we are all our own worst enemies
…all kept running through his
head after what he deemed an

unfortunate confrontation. Could
he have done something different-
ly? Of course. Did he learn some-

thing? Of course. Will this inform
him for next time, the inevitable
next time? Hopefully. And finally,

there comes a time to stop playing
the tapes over and over in his head
and second-guessing himself and

move forward; at least that is what
a very learned person, but not an
oft-quoted philosopher, writer,

or anonymous writer of truisms
like those quoted above, told
him — just someone who cared.

The counselor told the man years
ago that the man couldn’t have it
both ways — the man couldn’t
proclaim social justice and need

approval. It would eventually kill
him. The man thought about it
and made a choice. That was
exactly right; that was fifty years

ago and the man, at seventy-
four, is still learning and still con-
fronting and still being rejected by
those who don’t want to be con-

fronted, but the man still can’t help
himself and can’t stop confronting
injustice as he sees it, and no longer
needs peoples’ approval which was

the original concern; in fact, the man
needs approval almost not at all and
he doesn’t do the confrontation out
of spite but just because the need

for social justice happens to keep
happening, but he keeps asking
whether or not he is doing it all
with love. The man then thought

about what his late wife once told
him: he would never have an ulcer;
he would just give them to others.
He has thought a lot about that also.

He sits by the creek
watching the clear,
shallow water move
resolutely down to
the lake.

He thinks about the
chaos in the country,
in the world and, to
be perfectly honest,
in his life right now
with people acting
out.

As the water moves
down, the ducks
move up against
the current looking
for food.

You have to do
what you have
to do to get
through.

The ducks head
back downstream —
going with the flow —
hopefully enjoying
the float.

He sits in the shade
under a canopy enjoy-
ing the solitude of
watching the flow.

A zephyr wind blows
by scattering the
gnats and mosquitoes.

He breathes deeply of
the fresh, dry, late
summer air.

The therapist wrote of the couple 
whose elder son 
killed himself with a shotgun, 
and they gave that very gun 
as a gift to their younger son. 
The creepiness still crawls; 
the evil still stalks. 
Depravity 
is the universal cavity 
and we beg for Huxley’s Soma/Novocaine 
to end the pain 
while we experience
more of the same,
that which is more and more insane —
    more domestic violence-ism,
          hedonism, 
               narcissism,
                    egotism,
                         ethnic racism,
                              ecological destruction-ism,
                                   and the beat 
                                        goes on, 
                                             and on 
                                                 and 
                                                      on -- ism.

*idea from a reminder from of friend of Scott Peck’s
“People of the Lie,” published in 1981

.

It is said, the only land
the Occupant can live
in is the land of syco-
phants. This is not the
land of Jonathan Swift.
Gulliver didn’t travel
here. They say that the
Occupant has “jumped
the shark”; some say the
shark got cheated; others
say, “We did.” Some say
the Occupant is on the
way out. Sartre said there
is no exit. Camus said
something like, in spite
of the fact that not much
of this makes any sense
at all, do the ethical thing.
If Camus were alive, I
would wear a tee-shirt
proclaiming, “Camus
for President.” and
if Sartre were alive,
another one saying,
“Sartre for Secretary
of State.”

“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark,” said Marcellus to Horatio
and the Occupant, of the federal nursery school, said, “I won’t go.”
There is nothing rotten in the state of Denmark or in Greenland;
the problem is in the states and Denmark put an end to a ludicrous plan
for the US to purchase Greenland and the Occupant to build
a golden tower in the land of melting ice and alcohol distilled
which is why Marcellus made the remark he did.
Denmark, under the influence of spirits, was a Shakespearian poetic fib.
Hamlet blamed it all on booze but there was not a chance.
The problem was crazy Hamlet who acted like the infantile Occupant in big pants.