poetry

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What would Mom, Aunt Helen and Aunt Ruthie do?

My son, Timmy, will be six on Friday and Emily, Cathy’s girl, will be eight on Saturday.  So many kids in the family and that means way too many birthday parties and that means my wife and her sisters are doing the same thing that my mom and aunts used to do with all the kids’ birthdays: they group the birthday parties. It’s easier for the family and a whole lot cheaper, too.

Cleveland is having a good year.  The Cavaliers are in the playoffs and if you’re in the playoffs you have a shot at making the finals and the championship.  The Indians are also playing pretty well so far and staying healthy. With a better start than last year they might make the playoffs this year and again, if you’re in the playoffs you’ve got a chance to play in the World Series and win the championship.

Two contending sports teams and the city is also hosting the Republican National Convention  this summer so Republican delegates and Black Lives Matter and Occupy youngsters will be coming in from out of town.  Possibly two sports championships and a national convention and that means three potential riots.

I’ve sent a letter to the mayor about how my mom, Aunt Helen and Aunt Ruthie consolidated birthday parties and have asked him what he thinks about waiting until after we know if the Indians make the playoffs to plan a big riot/looting extravaganza for Cleveland.  You know, thinking about it if the Indians do get into the World Series and win that will be close to the Presidential election in November and that means another riot if Donald Trump wins. Four possible riots in one year, wow.  Help, Aunt Ruthie.

I know what mom, Aunt Helen and Aunt Ruthie would do, they’d plan one big event and that could be what the mayor might want to explore.  Fewer riots and less mounted police overtime cost for the city and a chance for Black Lives Matter and Occupy to tear up Cleveland and then go home with a big screen TV.  Seems like a sensible idea to me.

The only down side is if the Black Lives Matter and Occupy kids come in for the convention in July and then postpone their rioting and looting until later in the year, possibly in November, will they be able to get off work in order to come back for the riot and looting activities?

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We’ve learned well

As the priest left the church Saturday night he was assaulted, pistol whipped and robbed by three men. The local TV station in reporting the story asked that anyone with information about the possible suspects or their location contact the police. According to the station the suspects were described as wearing all black; a gray sweatsuit and a gray jacket.
Anyone know anything? Has anyone seen the all black clothing, the gray sweatsuit or the gray jacket involved in the robbery and beating of an elderly priest? No further information was provided by the station on whether the sweatsuit had a drawstring or the gray jacket may have had a zipper. Small, Medium, Large or XLarge? Sorry, nothing else was provided.
Know something? Say something! The San Bernardino terrorist’s neighbor said nothing when she thought something suspicious was going on next door. She saw men who she now describes as being middle eastern going in and out of the house with packages at all hours. And what did she do? She did nothing. She didn’t want to be labeled as being a racial profiler and so people are dead and people are injured in San Bernardino and it was only because the terrorist’s bombs failed to detonate that more people weren’t killed or injured. Would it have been profiling if instead of identifying the men as being middle eastern she would have identified maybe suspicious clothing going in and out of the house with packages at all hours?
“…and then they came for me…” and everyone saw what was happening but nobody said anything for fear of being labeled a hater, a racist or a racial profiler. Those who witnessed the attack said that they could or would not pick out the suspect gray sweatsuit in the police lineup which included a beach towel, a light blue golf shirt, a green and yellow bedspread and a pair of Bermuda shorts.
We’ve learned well, America.

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Pretty great

There is no doubt from watching the various protests which have taken place over the last year that there are Americans who hate their country. As the TV news reports showed businesses being looted, buildings being burned, police cars being set on fire, police being attacked with rocks and gun fire coming from those rioting in the streets we heard their chants calling for dead cops, heard their foul language, saw their obscene gestures and read their signs which condemned America as a terrible nation. The rioters spit on the flag, burned the flag, stomped on the flag and one bright light even demonstrated how to use the American flag as toilet paper.
It’s funny though that as we watch these anti-American demonstrations and riots we never see any of the America haters pull out a pair of scissors and cut up their EBT (electronic benefit transfer) card. I guess we can all agree that free groceries are pretty great.

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Fore

So there I was heading up to the tee on the fifth hole at Twin Maples Country Club. That par 5, fifth hole (555 yards) has always given me problems but then I decided, not today.
As I stepped off the golf cart I pulled my driver out of the bag and instead of heading to the mens tee I said to myself, “Bob you are now Roberta”, and I walked to the ladies tee. Now I can’t say that I hit the ball any better but it just seemed that because of the shorter distance I had a little extra confidence when I swung that club. As I got back into the cart (after saying, “Roberta, you are now Bob”) I threw my fist into the air in a victory salute.
I did wonder whether or not I needed to enter some kind of note or asterisk next to my score but I decided that, no, this is a personal choice I am making and it’s nobody’s business if I am Bob or Roberta or Boberta or what I am doing or not doing on or off the golf course. My gender identity is my business.
It did cross my mind though that if I make a big deal out of using the women’s tees while dressed in a golf outfit that said Bob someone might object. If that happens I just might be playing at Boberta’s Twin Maples Country Club in the very near future.

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Remember, not all

“Oh no, look, It’s coming down” and the world watched as Gustave Eiffel’s tower which had stood in Paris since 1887 crumbled into a pile of twisted metal that looked like the pictures of the Hindenburg disaster in 1937. And there could have been no greater shock until at the sound of an explosion the cameras swung around to show a massive black cloud rising above the Louvre Museum which had held priceless antiquities and art masterpieces from around the world.
“Oh, my god, they’ve done it”, and the new live images showed a destroyed Big Ben and Parliament Building in London and smoke rising above the rubble that was once St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The shock of seeing these world landmarks come down was greeted with sighs and comforting statements that they were only buildings and that few people had died or were injured and then a shopping mall in Des Moines and theatres in Buffalo, San Antonio, Portland, Tampa, Milwaukee and Atlanta were hit with bombs and gunfire killing 3000 people and vegetables were poisoned at supermarkets throughout the American south killing thousands.
The countries which had been attacked shuddered and the citizens waited in fear until finally the people had had enough and started to stir. As the level of the people’s anger rose those who had been taught well jumped up as one and in a mighty voice screamed out, “not all Muslims are terrorists”.

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Giving back

It’s probably been twenty years since I first heard the phrase, “give back to the community.” Over and over and over again we hear people say it or read a company press release which says that ABC Corporation “wants to give back to the community”.
All of these people and companies giving back and the communities which are the targets of all of this giving back just keep getting worse and more violent. Maybe if everyone just stopped going for that warm and fuzzy feeling and started to look at what works to make things better we would actually have improved communities and a healthier nation. But that wouldn’t focus on the give back giver and that’s what it’s all about isn’t it?

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The horn

You really don’t hear it during the day. I guess when you’re sitting there on the train there are too many other sounds and distractions or you’re just too busy watching the world pass by to hear it.
But at night as you sit in the coach dozing or lie in your bed in the sleeper you hear the soft horn leading your train. At night outside there is nothing to see but the lights of farms and small towns and cars on the highway running alongside the railroad right of way. You can’t tell if you’re in New York or Ohio or Kansas or Arizona and so you drift off with only the horn of the engine marking the passage.
Then one night when you’re back home lying there and the bedside clock changes from telling you the time to telling you how long until you have to get up you hear a train horn on the other side of town. You know it isn’t your train and that the sound is probably pulling cars filled with coal or containers or automobiles but as you hear it crossing after crossing it becomes your train’s horn and you fall off to sleep in bedroom C, car 3901.

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Hey, hey

I keep thinking about the current condition of the United States. I have never seen the country so divided and so angry and so confused. We are watching the nation rip itself apart. I keep thinking and thinking and asking, “how did we get to this point? How did this happen?”
And then there it was. Right there, coming out of my radio, the theme from The Monkees, the pop/rock, four member band created in the mid-sixties for a TV show. That theme song said it all:
Hey, hey, we’re the Monkees
And people say we monkey around.
But we’re too busy singing
To put anybody down.

We’re just tryin’ to be friendly,
Come and watch us sing and play,
We’re the young generation,
And we’ve got something to say.
“And we’ve got something to say”. Something to say, which was what that “we’re the young generation”?
You’ve got to remember the time that saw the creation of the Monkees, the sixties. Pepsi advertised itself as, “Now it’s Pepsi, for those who think young”. The Who was talking about “my generation”. It was all about the young generation, the baby boom generation. It was all about us, the boys and girls born after World War II. We were the generation which forced cities and towns across the nation to build thousands of schools as new housing developments exploded. We were the generation which was behind the creation of “The Mickey Mouse Club”, a TV show aimed at this huge, new audience. We were the generation which was the target for the creation of the Honda motorcycle and the Ford Mustang and muscle cars. There were so many of us that it truly was all about us. It was easy to see that the older generations meant nothing. Anyone who was not a baby boomer was an old fogey. It was about us and we had “something to say”. We were cool because we were cool and we bought it. If it wasn’t about us or for us it just wasn’t cool. We actually thought that we were something special.
Being so important was so cool. But of all those important baby boomer people who were the coolest? Whoever screamed the loudest that they were cool. Whoever had ”something to say” the loudest, something to say that was easy like peace and love. They were cool and that meant to be cool like them we had to say the same cool things. And we listened and we bought it over and over again. We watched as a whole generation got excited about us and we just had to be right didn’t we?
We were special because we weren’t our parents or our grandparents and that made it real easy to be special and cool because that meant that we should be whatever they were not. We were the counter culture. If they warned us about the dangers of using drugs than drugs were what we wanted. If they wanted a good job and a family and a strong nation then we didn’t. If they loved their country and fought for her then we didn’t and wouldn’t. The baby boomer generation fell right into line following those who blamed America first and then hated America and all that the nation stands for. And it was all so simple. Your opinion didn’t really mean much unless it was the right opinion. Have the right opinions and you’re cool, you’re important and your life had meaning. Just wear your hair long like the hippies in San Francisco do, like your father never would and you were groovy and you were someone who cared, someone of importance. We were ribbon wearers before there were ribbon wearers.
And then the years slipped by and it was still about us because of our numbers. Housing? About us. Employment? About us. TV and movies? About us. It is about us into the future too because after the housing developments and schools which were built for us there will be hospitals and nursing homes in the future because of us.
After all of these years too many of our fellow citizens are still lost in the sixties and still trying to be special and cool. And where are we today? Where do we find the nation? Being led and fundamentally changed by old hippies and hippie wannabes and directed in the press by old hippies who still think that they’re special. “We’re the young generation and we have something to say”.
Want to know what I think, what I have to say? Give me a minute and let me find out what the cool people have to say. I’m special, Hey, hey.
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