I don’t write in a journal everyday, but I have accumulated many entries over the past 50+ years beginning in 1966. Some items evolved into longer works. Among the leftovers little pieces survived. I thought a collection of these with a piece culled from the same date in a past year would make an interesting yearbook. The consistencies and inconsistencies of mind, skipping back and forth across time, provide varied perspectives. It is difficult to remember the context of the past we’ve lived; we also make suppositions about times that predate ourselves.

The few alterations from original drafts were to improve clarity. The worst of my work is not included. There remains enough mediocrity and immaturity to make me feel humble and you feel smart. There are also moments of accidental insight and incidental humor.

Author Stephen Crane referred to his little pieces as pills…apparently they were small and somewhat hard to swallow, but good for you.


Comments Welcome!

Saturday, April 7, 2018

Read us a story we’d say


April 7, 2013  (I was 68)

Read us a story we’d say
and of course we meant one each
Comic books before bed
and she would  The three of us
atop the double bed she’d read
Little Lulu, Uncle Scrooge, Daffy Duck
Maybe Superman or Batman
Real super heroes were my solitary literature
Blackhawk
an international team of ethnic Caucasian stereotypes
Andre, Olaf, Stanislaus, Hendrickson, Chuck, Blackhawk
and the non-uniformed almost mascot Chop-Chop
who carried a cleaver for a weapon
Later often amused by Archie
I would prefer Betty to snobby Veronica
and Jughead saved us all from being jugheads
We grew out of her reading and the comics
But the peaceful choice to be engaged
in little communal stories never left me 
How foolish would it be
to read them to her now, share again
small predictabilities and satisfactory conclusions
A good start for tomorrow before we ended today

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