I just don’t know what to say. I’m sitting here listening to Blind Melon at the moment, and looking out the back door at the woods. It ain’t Christmas, but it surely is white, and the deli out back has been full of patrons for days. I am going through black sunflower seed at a remarkable rate. Tons of birds, lots of squirrels, but I haven’t seen any raccoons. Since the freezing rain started the other night, followed by sleet, then snow, then more sleet, and then a lot more snow on top of that slippery mess, well, they say it is not fit out for man nor ‘coon. Now that the cats have gotten used to their first real snow, they don’t seem to mind it much. They run in and out of the cat flap like we did, my friends and myself, when we were kids, and even on through the 70s as we got older and we used to still sled and toboggan. I’m afraid my tobogganing days are over: I don’t like the cold nearly as much as I used to, and I don’t get the urge. A hot cup of chamomile tea is more to my liking now on a day like this. No more flying down the hill, spraying fresh powder. Now it’s talcum powder I crave. At any rate, possibly I’ll come back to write more in a bit, but right now I need to check the chili pot.

https://youtu.be/FOBULsEUwn8

I am supposed to be trying to post more, but I don’t seem to be achieving much in that area. I do have a few problems dealing with the holidays. Always have had, or at least the last thirty years or so. I have been listening to Christmas music with Lisa for the past couple of weeks, and it is helping, but occasionally I start to think about the people I will no longer see, the ones I can no longer talk to, with whom I can no longer correspond, trade music and ideas. I depend greatly on my new friends, and the few who remain of my old ones. Even with the addition of the new ones, my ranks of friends have substantially diminished over the years, so the load and my dependence on each is greater. Now another terrible loss has reared its horrible, ugly head. Monday evening there was a senseless murder, a totally heartless act which I will never be able to comprehend.

A young man was contacted by a “friend” who had a “friend” who wanted to procure some marijuana. Of course in Indiana that is still illegal, so it was to be a clandestine transaction in the parking lot of a bar. The young man agreed to the meeting, and then talked a friend of his into riding along. The aforementioned “friend of the friend” approached the young man’s vehicle, a discussion ensued, and then “the friend of the friend” drew a weapon, demanded that the marijuana be handed over, and when the young man objected “the friend of the friend” immediately and for no apparent reason opened fire, wounding both young men in the vehicle. At this point “the friend of the friend” pulled the young man from his car to lie bleeding in the parking lot from a neck wound, then jumped in the car with the other wounded young man still inside and left the scene.

The young man who owned the car was discovered lying in the parking lot outside the bar by patrons who had heard the shots fired, and transported to the emergency room. He was able to give his version of the story, and it appears he will survive. An APB was put out on the stolen vehicle and the search began. The vehicle was found Tuesday morning sitting abandoned in an apartment complex parking lot, with the other young man, the ride along passenger, dead from multiple gunshot wounds, still slumped in the passenger’s seat. It was the totally senseless killing of a twenty year old with his entire life ahead of him who had done nothing but go on a ride with a friend, a young man who was not armed, had no intent, nor the means, of causing injury to his assailant. It was a cold blooded murder, and the young man was my canoeing buddy Clark’s nephew: the nephew he had intended to have join us on some of our excursions this coming year.

I have nothing else to say other than this: If the state of Indiana, a backward place indeed, had legalized the sale and taxation of marijuana at authorized and licensed businesses as more enlightened states have done, this need not have happened, and if they had not paroled an inmate formerly convicted of and incarcerated for armed robbery on multiple occasions, a violent criminal act, released likely because of prison overcrowding due to the number of non-violent offenders incarcerated for relatively minor infractions which should not be illegal at all, well… The penalties for victimless crimes need to be revisited, and senseless laws need to be smitten from our rolls. That’s all I have to say, and I have been saying it for a very long time.

I am being facetious. For quite a while now I have been thinking about putting up one of my poems from long ago, and, after reading a couple of very fine poems recently, I decided today I would do it. I apologize for the scan quality. I will try to re-scan it soon. I hope you find it worth the effort of the read.

Also, while I’m at it, I apologize. I haven’t posted any music lately, and I regret that. Music is an integral part of my life. It so happens I have two songs in mind; the one above to ease you into the poem, and the one below to haul your butt out. (Lisa does not want me to curse on Harold’s Room. She wants me to maintain a PG rating so anyone can read any Harold material, with parental guidance as indicated. I fear I have faltered in maintaining my PG rating on occasion.) At any rate, without further ado, I give you Maneater.

https://youtu.be/kr8-E8may2Y

Sleep well my friends. I hope to.

Here we go into the holidays my friends. I hope you are all girded for battle. As my offering to you for Thanksgiving I am posting chapter nine of the book. It is a synopsis of the holidays. It covers Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years Eve, past, present, and future. It is an amalgamation of what I have had, and what I can no longer anticipate having. I am missing Harold and Smithee, and Ron and Rick and Paulie, my beloved family members Ronnie, Marvin, my aunts and uncles, my grandparents of course, who were major, major influences on me, and all the others I have lost. I miss them all terribly, but I know that death is part of life, and I still see all of them in my mind’s eye. In my world they are still with me, and are reading this over my shoulder and telling me to add what I have forgotten.

As I have probably mentioned, the cats help me through my feelings of loss, but today I am going to be thankful for all that I have, for all that I have experienced which made me who I am, and for all of the people I have known and loved who were part of those experiences; those with me now, and those who are elsewhere. To all of you, I am thankful to have had you in my life, and to those reading with mortal eyes, I am grateful you are still here.

Be safe through the holidays. Be joyful. Peace be with you.

Good morning all. Since I have been so remiss lately I pulled out another chapter of Harold’s room and did the old copy and paste. I hope it helps assuage my guilt and mollifies you, my friends, and that you will forgive me. I sincerely intend to try to post on a more regular basis in the future, but in my defense, I have lost two entities in my life this year who impacted me in very positive ways, and these losses were devastating. Without further ado, I present for your edification, and hopefully your approval, chapter eight of Harold’s Room.

Hello all. I trust you are doing well? It has been a while again, so I thought I had better give you an update. I haven’t given up on Harold yet, but as it gets closer and closer to hibernation time my optimism that he’ll show up at the door, or I’ll see him sitting on the patio waiting for bread and meal worms, is fading day by day. I just ran banana and wheat bread out to one of his kin who was sitting on one of the red turtle plates finishing off a tiny bit of tomato left over from yesterday’s fare. He was a little taken aback and started to run for the underbrush, but once I presented half of a banana to him as an open-face sandwich on wheat bread he stopped before he had gone six inches from the plate and watched me set it down. I assured him I was not going to pick him up or mess with him in any way, and that I was putting the other banana sandwich on the other red plate, going back in, and would feed the squirrels and fill the bird feeders later when he was done. He settled right down, watched me come back in, close the door, and back up on the plate he went. I am watching him munch his banana now. He is one happy boy. I love all my wild turtles, who are not quite so “wild” anymore, but I sure do miss my little buddy.

Regarding the feral cats, five of the kittens are scheduled for neutering and inoculations next Monday on National Feral Cat Day. The Humane Society is offering a steep discount that day. Unfortunately five cats are the most they would do under that program, so Jackson is going in the next morning at the regular male feral cat price when I pick up the first five. He is the most agreeable when it comes to handling and being by himself, so he gets to be the lone wolf. Sometimes it doesn’t work out so well for you when you’re the best of the bunch. Jackson is a honey badger, though, so he’ll be fine, and I’ll pick him up next Wednesday morning, and then treat him like the king he is all day.

I am sorry, people. In the midst of writing this a tragedy occurred. I, and all of the people who cared for him deeply because of his wit, intellect, compassion, the information he gave us, we have all been in mourning for the unexpected loss of Alan Smithee, aka @actualflatticus, on Twitter. It was a colossal blow. He battled the evil giants of lies, greed and deceit in our country and throughout the world. He remained anonymous to protect himself and his family, because the enemies he made are powerful indeed. He showed us how and why the platitudes they feed us are without merit, all empty promises, never kept, but what we wanted to hear, just so they could get our votes on election day, after which they pandered to their donors exclusively. He showed us how they cheated us all. He disclosed where the money came from, and where the money went. He put it there in black and white on Twitter, the government reporting forms for all the world to see. He called them out by name and demanded answers, which they refused to give. They called him names and ran. They blocked him so he could not see their lies. They feared him for the truth he told. Through it all I marveled at his facility for research, citation, irrefutable proof, and his ability to argue his points ’til he brought the foul dogs to heel, or sent them running with their tails between their legs to hide from him. He was, is, and will remain a hero to all of us who value the truth. Smithee, wherever you are, we love you, we miss you, we honor you. I have gone about my daily business. The cats are fixed, my music still plays, the Earth still spins, but my life is not nor will it ever be the same, because of you. May Ruby look out for you and those you left behind always.

I am sitting here listening to Mighty Sam McClain sing The Blues, and wondering to myself why anyone would move to a place called Oak Hill Woods Condominiums, buy a free-standing unit backed up against the woods, and then bitch because there are wild animals in those woods. I mean, I was a city boy, but I spent my weekends at my maternal grandparents’ and one week each summer at my paternal grandparents’, and they were farmers and hunters. I was hunting squirrels alone with a .16 gauge at the age of fourteen. Switched to a .22 rifle with a scope at seventeen when I was working and could afford to buy one. A Marlin lever action saddle gun, it was. Straight stock, short barrel, and easier to sneak through the brush with, slung on my back. I made the sling myself out of an old brown leather belt. Perfect. But I digress. I have caught fish and turtles, run with the ‘coon hounds (though we carried no guns), howled at the full moon with the wolves, and danced under its light with thirteen raccoons at my feet. I have paddled up Pigeon Creek in the dark under that moon, and I have feared nothing. If it isn’t severely injured or rabid it is not going to bother me. Startle me? Yes, on occasion, but fear it, no. I am there, they are there, and I have chosen to be out there with them whenever I can all of my life. I do not fear them, and many of them do not fear me. I maintain respect as being the biggest raccoon, or fox, or cat, or bird, simply by standing to show my size, clapping my hands three times loudly, and saying in a stern voice, “What the hell is going on out here?” Sometimes I’ve had to do it twice in the midst of a ‘coon disagreement, but never more. I just keep moving forward and bristling with authority. If it ever does fail, I am going to figure injury or rabies is involved and haul ass for the house. That’s just the way it is. At any rate (did I say that before?), Lisa and I chose to live here precisely because the tree-line is ten feet beyond the edge of our patio, and the woods is full of creatures we love to watch, and interact with if they’ll let us. We had to stop hand-feeding bread and dog biscuits to the raccoons at the behest of the HOA. We immediately agreed of course, since they said we could put out ground pans at the tree-line with food for them, so long as we did not entice them out of the woods. We have adhered to that religiously. I no longer have baby raccoons playing with my toes through the holes in my fisherman’s sandals, nosing my knee, sitting between my feet so the big ‘coons don’t take their bread, or trying to climb up my leg into my lap. I am denied that now, because these raccoons were “aggressive.” I never found them to be so. And I would much rather deal with animals I know than deal with the newcomers all over again when they arrive to replace the ones that were “trapped and relocated.” For God’s sake, Oak Hill Woods Condominiums has woods and gullies all through it, and is bordered by Pigeon Creek, and all of this is prime wildlife habitat: As fast as you move someone out, someone else is going to move in, forever, and ever, and ever. Mother Nature will prevail. You will be dead, and they will still be here. Make friends, or at least tolerate and cohabit, with those who lived here long before you, those who live here because of you, and those who will live here when you are dead and forgotten. Life will prevail. In the long run, nature and her creatures will win, and you will be nothing but bones, and, if you’re lucky, a brief memory for someone. Betty, this is for you, bitch. You know who, and what you are: a spiteful, controlling bitch. Does your very nice husband ever speak? I have never heard his voice. That is very disturbing. Do you psychologically abuse him like you do everyone else within your sphere? Should I report you? If you abuse any woodland creatures, I assure you, I know how to dial 911, since I was sitting on the log in Pigeon Creek wondering how to hail a taxi, and Lisa’s suggestion seemed best. Would you like to go canoeing with me sometime? Next spring during the rains would be good. I should warn you, it can be hazardous on creeks in flood. I didn’t care. I have never feared death. It is part of life. You game, or just all mouth? Just wondered.

You know, you could just worry ’bout yo’self. I don’t bother nobody, and I don’t understand why people do.

I do apologize for my recent lack of contributions to this page. My Missing Muse has left me in a mental void as to what I should write about, what I shouldn’t, and if I should write at all. I have no clue as to how many visitors might have just dropped by, taken a quick look and left, or how many have actually read my ramblings, or Harold’s chapters. Haven’t gotten much in the way of comments to help me determine the directions in which I should go, what subjects are interesting, or amusing, etc. In my defense, I did finally stop sitting here in my chair watching out the back door all day, at least as much as I could, so as to not be totally useless. I have been canoeing a couple of times, to dinner a couple of times, and to the liquor store, when I was missing my boy particularly badly, without taking a shower. Yes! I actually left my house and went out in public without taking a shower! Twice! Both times to the liquor store! Ask Lisa how unusual that is. At any rate (you’ll find that term a lot in Harold’s book) I just added chapter seven of “Harold’s Room” in atonement.

Now for the “BUT…”  noted above: The little yellow boat was recovered from the flood waters of Pigeon Creek, where a scholar and a gentleman climbed out of his kayak onto the log jam in which it was stuck, wrestled a log out of it which had punched a crack in the hull, above the waterline fortunately, got in it, and paddled it to safety towing his kayak behind. He contacted the police and the DNR trying to find the owner, but after two months gave up and had his niece post it on the internet for sale. Sean, who frequently looks at used canoes and kayaks on-line, saw it, and of course recognized it immediately. My seat, rod holder bracket and cup holder were still in it. He contacted the young lady who had posted it, told her the story, and the boat listing was removed. Several days later the gentleman who retrieved it contacted Sean, told him about having tried to find the owner and said to Sean, “If you could have him call me and tell me the one other item that would have been in that boat…”, at which point Sean blurted out, “A JBL water-proof speaker system.”

“Well. That answers that question,” he said, and that if Sean would have me call him he would give me directions on where I could pick up my boat.

And the gentleman who brought the craft out of the flood and restored it to me? His name is Noah. Lisa had been telling me when I found out I was getting my boat back that I should call her “The Yellow Submarine,” but when she found out who had rescued her, and his graciousness in returning her to me, she said I should call her “Noah’s Ark,” and I believe I shall.

The first pic below is one Sean saw in the ad.  The next few are from last Wednesday when I picked it up from Noah, brought it home, and immediately patched it. The rest are from Saturday, and explain themselves.

Thank you Noah. You are a scholar, a gentleman, and a man who lives his faith and does not just profess it. You walk the walk to back your talk. You have given me renewed hope in the human race.

For my friend Harold. Listen up buddy!!!!

I suppose those of you who follow up and look to see what we’ve been up to have noticed I haven’t posted in over two weeks. I am afraid I made a major mistake in gauging Harold’s mood, and I paid for it. A pretty little girl turtle showed up outside in the feeding area, and I brought her in to meet him. He started his “I’d like to get to know you” moves, but she was having none of it. She sat in his food bowl completely drawn into her shell, and closed for business. He tried everything, but to no avail. He gave me a disparaging look, gave up, and went to his window to watch the neighbor’s foundation for lizards. The young lady took this opportunity to move to Harold’s hut. There is room for two turtles in there, so Harold joined her, but she was still having none of it. Unfortunately there is NOT enough room in there for Harold to really show his best, most winning moves, though he tried. This time when he failed to make an impression, he turned to face me, stood in the middle of his courtyard, and gave me the “stank eye.” I told him I was sorry, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. He began pacing back and forth along his windows, occasionally stopping to peer about. I had the patio door cracked open about eight inches to let the kittens and Stripey Cat come in to nibble and drink their nice, cool milk as it was pretty warm that day. He must have walked past that door at least five or six times. He made one more trip around the room, and then went back to his hut to try talking to the pretty girl again. He was a bit more insistent this time, repeatedly pecking at the front of her shell trying to get her to loosen up a bit and at least acknowledge him. He tried and tried, but still no luck. This time when he failed he came back into his courtyard, climbed into his feeding bowl, and he literally glared at me, for a long, long time, while standing on top of his smorgasbord of treats. I told him again, “I’m sorry, buddy. You’re on your own. I brought her in, but it’s up to you to win her affections. There is nothing I can say or do to help you with this. You’re just going to have to take care of it yourself.” That did not go over well at all. He continued to glare at me for a few minutes, and then wandered off in a huff. I had a few things to take care of inside the house, so, not thinking much of it, I went about my business. I looked out here occasionally to check on his progress with his lady friend, but she still continued to hide out in the hut, and I heard Harold clunking along the windowsill.

Time passed. The music played. I piddled in the house, straightening, folding, vacuuming, cleaning my “gas station bathroom,” as Lisa calls it: all the usual stuff. I checked on the cats and the turtles a few more times, and noticed Harold wasn’t galumphing about anymore. I figured he was sulking in a corner or behind the air filter as he usually does when he isn’t happy with me. Again, didn’t think much about it. I yanked the bag out of the kitchen trash can, put a new bag in, and went around the house gathering the rest of the trash, Thursday at dawn (No kidding. Before dawn in the dead of winter.) being our collection time, and Wednesday at dusk the “preferred time for curb-side placement” here in the “retirement community.” I took the bag out to the big container, grabbing the recyclable container as I passed, and hauled them to the curb. Our neighbor, a wonderful elderly lady who collects our mail and newspapers for us while we are on vacation, was struggling with a large chaise lounge pad. We recycle a lot, so there was only the one bag in our trash can, so I offered to put it in ours since it is much larger than hers. She chose the small version when the city started prescribing their own contractor’s containers for the new one operator lift trucks. I shoved it in, she thanked me, and I returned to the house. I went to Harold’s room and started looking for him. Not with the lady in the hut. Not in the corners, behind the pots in his jungle, behind or in front of the air filter, nor under the tables or chairs. No Harold. At some point after his stomping fit stopped, he decided THIS time he was going out that door to find his own women if I wasn’t going to be of any assistance with the one he had.

I sat in my chair looking out the back door at the turtle feeding plates every hour of every day that I could, watching for him to come looking for meal worms since he’s an addict, or chasing some lady up or across the hill from the gully behind us to bananas she will eat, but he refuses to. I saw quite a few turtles, nibbling bananas, cantaloupe, grapes, blueberries, chicken: whatever I could find I thought Harold might want. I put his feeding bowl out on the patio, hoping I’d find him standing in it demanding meal worms, whole wheat bread, and whatever else he might deign to eat that day. No luck. I saw five one day, and one had yellow spots like Harold, which is a rarity here, so I got very excited, but this gentleman was younger, with a black plastron, no crack. I set him down, wished him well, and went back to my chair.

There I sat for the next couple of days until I had to start packing for Akumal Bay Health & Wellness Resort (all inclusive) on the Riviera Maya, an hour or so south of Cancun. And that’s where I was until 11:00 AM Sunday morning, at which time we were picked up by our shuttle and headed back to Cancun. We got back home at 11:45 or thereabouts that night, hit the sheets, hard, and struggled through yesterday, being Monday the 31st, unpacking, sorting and all the other wonderful stuff you do with yourself and your suitcases and all. I did get a new canoeing hat down there, and a decent canoeing tan. We just lounged on the beach listening to music on my JBL Charge 3. It’s a beast for its size, and you can charge your various electrical devices off of it, and it will still play for ten or fifteen hours, twenty if you don’t tap the battery. Anyway, Lisa read, I listened and sang. We drank. We ate. We listened to the musicians at the bar if they were good, and drank some more. It was nice. But now here I sit, watching out the back door while my laundry spins, listening to music (Jack White at the moment), waiting for a yellow spotty headed turtle, with a regal bearing, a hankering for meal worms, and a cracked plastron. More on Mexico later. I have to go mope some more, and take my pants out of the dryer. A lot of pants.

It seems as if I just posted yesterday, but it has been almost a week. Where does the time go? Life gets in the way of writing sometimes, and then something else raises it’s ugly little head, or a squirrel runs past, or a kitten, or a turtle (as fast as it can run) and I am off on another tangent, and more time passes: substantially more time than I had anticipated, or remember later. I sometimes like to take a gander at this to remind myself that there are more important things than our daily, mundane tasks, that make us human:

The World Is Too Much With Us

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.—Great God!  I’d rather be
A pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

I “borrowed” this from Poets.org, the web site of the Academy of American Poets. (Please note: This poem is in the public domain.) I have been getting their Poem-A-Day since its inception, and I highly recommend it. I won’t pretend I like every poem I get, but there are far more I do like than don’t, and I appreciate the efforts of anyone who writes poetry. It ain’t as easy as it looks, folks. A couple of good stanzas of poetry can take ten times the work of five pages of at least legible English prose. Anyway…

I went to the Poets.org web site yesterday, and I was so pleased to see that a gentleman I hold in very high regard had a quote on there, and that he is, well poo, I’ll just stick the pic I made for my Twitter friends here:

And as I told my Twitter friends, this is David sitting on the lap of some old fool circa 1994 or ’95, and I do believe we had been partaking of a wee bit of alcohol that evening before we were talked into posing for this. We are both much grayer, and we show a lot more scalp these days. Dr. David St. John is a scholar and a gentleman, and I, for one, am tickled to death he has attained the recognition he so richly deserves. He, Stephen Dobyns, Larry Levis, Heather McHugh,  Andrew Hudgins and Ellen Bryant Voight are a few of my favorite modern poets, and I got to meet them, spend time with them, get to know them, along with prose authors Bob Shacochis, Michael Martone, Barry Hannah and Erin McGraw. There were others, too, wonderful people, but these people had the most impact on me, personally. I treasure the time I spent with them in New Harmony. They are all a joy to be around, and excellent teachers and mentors. I do still dabble on occasion. I will likely put up some of my favorites eventually, including the one about shooting snapping turtles (For sweet Ruby’s sake don’t tell Harold!), which I workshopped with David, that got published! He told me to go for it. Thank you David.

I also got to meet and spend time with one David Broza. This David likes to take poems, old classics and modern ones that catch his attention, and set them to music. He was a frequent “Visiting Artist” at Ropewalk Writers’ Retreat (aside from being a World Renowned Artist).

The particular example I am about to give you is an anomaly. David wrote the music first, and asked Matthew Graham, who was also once a friend and mentor of mine, to write the lyrics for his tune. It never fails to choke me up. I sort of knew my life back then was headed in this direction. It is one of the most touching and “complete” songs I have ever heard. I would not change one thing. So far as I know it is the only “lyric” Matthew has ever written. He should write more I think.

My stepson Zach (a fine guitarist himself) and David.

Ellen with one of her pre-reading G&Ts.  She required two. Or three. She said it made the words roll off of her tongue easier.

Ellen, Heather and Stephen enjoying someone else’s reading.

Bob, Barry, and the old fool getting his book signed.

Andrew, well, being Andrew, and Erin smiling none-the-less.

Ah well. Those days are gone. Remember, and cherish: that is all that is left to me now. I’ll be back later to tell you about how “the world was too much with me” the last few days. I think I need to go pull a few books out of my cupboard that I have not read in far too long. All are worth rereading, as are the things they said to me when they signed them. I need some encouragement, some proof of my own worth as a writer of sorts. I hope my lack of production these past few years does not indicate a lack of appreciation for what they taught me. The fact that I stopped writing, or stopped submitting might be more accurate, was entirely my own fault. Or was it the world’s fault? I choose option 3: All of the above. Life is complicated.