Plainwritings

BOYHOOD DAZE

2009-05-23T15:56:00.001-07:00

BOYHOOD DAZE

There are moments when conditions are just so right, when an old man sits perfectly still, all sound recedes and it is silent, completely silent, his heartbeat seems alive in his ears, his eyes glaze over and dreams become reality, when the senses are so acute, when more than half a century can disappear and moments, certainly it could only have been moments, in time are remembered. Strange to him that it is remembered so vividly. His consciousness slurs and he is back in those moments.

The dust from the gravel covered back roads, the sun dappling through the dense overgrowth of maples, chestnut and elms reflected the road ahead in gauzy dreamlike patches of light and shadows.

The boy aboard his pedal powered steed, a black and red road master of the road, gliding alone, recording scents and sights, traveling through that time after childhood, but before that time when thoughts would change from those sense fulfilling moments without apprehension of tomorrow or guilt about yesterday, living only in the now, the joyful sense-provoking today. Tomorrow or those tomorrows yet to be were of no consequence except days, one after another in which to enjoy himself in this setting bequeathed to him certainly by kindly Gods. The future would yield its secrets in its own good time, when the boy would surrender his boyhood and lurch optimistically forward to meet it knowing if he faltered he had but to close his eyes and those graveled back roads and his black and red road master would be waiting for the boy, waiting to return him to that time, that moment when all was now and it couldn't get any better, a preview of heaven perhaps?

2009-03-04T14:36:00.001-08:00

What was the best purchase you ever made?

What was the best purchase you ever made? Maybe I should define that a little bit, make the parameters a little more exact. How about comparing amount of money paid for the object to amount of hours of enjoyment it returned. Of course this is all a setup. I have a purchase in mind already. A couple years ago, at an annual used book sale I attend each year, I picked up a book and added it to my sack of other goodies. The rationale at used book sales is different than the rules buying at a bookstore. At a bookstore the costs are prohibitively high so your selection process is much more strict. If you’re paying out twenty-five bucks and more per pop, you know you have to be convinced that you are buying the corresponding amount of enjoyment per dollar spent, not always easy.

But at a used book sale the fun is put back into the process. At twenty-five cents for a paperback and fifty cents to a dollar for the hardcover, it is all changed. You can buy a book because you once read something by the same author and enjoyed it, so maybe you will like this one by the same guy. Or perhaps the cover art grabs you, or the title interests you, whatever, if it grabs you, pick it up and toss it into your grocery store size bag, which are kindly provided by the hosts of the sale so you will keep browsing and adding to the bags contents. It is one of the best hours I spend each year rummaging through books that were once pristine and full of promise to the buyer. Now they are here among other much used or slightly used compatriots being once again analyzed for their worth. Which brings up another buying point; is a book in immaculate condition a better choice than the other which has obviously been much handled or ill-kept, is that a clue to its value? The answer is yes or no because, of course, there is no answer. But every once in a while luck enters the process and a book will be picked up by the person it was meant for. This happened to me once.

The best purchase I ever made, using the cost versus enjoyment-received criteria, was the book I mentioned in the first paragraph. It was the book titled, TO SERVE THEM ALL MY DAYS, by R.F. DELDERFIELD. I love this book. I have read it twice now, and the second reading was a good or better than the first. I suppose judgment of a books value is subjective and not objective. It meets your internal value system or it doesn’t. It’s as easy as that.

It is a book of over six hundred pages and I am a reader of each word, versus the fast reader who gulps paragraphs at a time, so the amount of time to read the entire book is not really calculable, but many, many hours to read the whole work is a fair statement. I enjoyed each and every hour I spent on it, each time, and all for twenty-five cents, picked up at the used book sale. This was the best purchase I ever made.

2009-03-04T14:34:00.001-08:00

THE FIRST TIME

I’m standing in the wings behind this dusty curtain knowing if I touch it the dust will cause me to start sneezing, I can’t do that. Oh God I think I’m getting sick, I’m either going to faint or throw up. I know I shouldn’t have worn this green satin dress, it’ll reflect the color to my face and I’ll look like I feel. I’ve only got about a minute to get myself together. The sweat is running down my ribcage and I know my face is shining like a polished cue ball. What if I get out there and no sound will come out of my mouth? Or I start to stutter? Oh sweet mother of God I think I’m getting panicky, should I turn and run? If I do I’m finished. Oh for crying out loud, now I have to go to the bathroom. If I don’t go right now I’m sure I might embarrass myself. No time, think of something else. Oh my God and now my stomach is starting to growl. It’s the loudest I’ve ever heard it. Can they hear it on stage? These new microphones can pick up anything, Oh Lord what to do?

“and now here is Americas favorite singer, winner of six gold records, star of stage, screen, and television, the one, the only…….”

OR THE SIX THOUSANDTH TIME, ITS ALWAYS THE SAME.

a fictional job related anecdote.

2009-03-04T09:40:00.001-08:00

OBSOLETE

The rays of the sun slant through unwashed windows, illuminating the

dryness of age in this forgotten place that stands by the side of steel tracks

where weeds now grow; where once great iron locomotives came, paused, then disappeared; where now only the sound of dried leaves skittering along the ground interrupt its sleep.

Benches along the wood paneled walls remain highly polished from

the multitudes of trousers and dresses that once buffed their

surfaces.

Bars of the ticket agent’s window, a patina of age upon them,

still guard a long gone presence that once routinely and officiously

charted the journeys, the count of which befogs the counter.

This forgotten structure, with walls that were once yellow,

green or red, chipped away by weather and neglect has turned

gray now as if to accommodate the modern world by becoming

as one with landscapes of the past.

Yet, to forget so easily this creation of its time as a discarded

relic, would bury all that we were that lives still in the lazy sun lit

dust of memory and where we too will assuredly abide one day.

2009-03-04T09:38:00.002-08:00

MIDNIGHT TRAIN
By Jim Kittelberger

Weary eyes refuse to close, and
I'm tired down to my toes, yet
another sleepless night seems plain
when I hear the midnight train.

Its that sound, that sound, it speaks to me
clackity-clack clackity-clack, the great steel wheels intoning their mantra,
clackity-clack clackity-clack, a fountainhead of imagination and quest
clackity-clack clackity-clack, wait, please wait,
but again, too soon it passes me by.

Clackity-clack clackity-clack
that hypnotizing sound calms me, soothes me, yet
beckons me as sea maids entice the sailor,

Clackity-clack clackity-clack
that evoker of memories, moments, dreams.
my whole being stirs, contemplates, then quiets

The iron colossus turns gently east into the midnight darkness
The ever increasing distance dimming the sound,
fainter, fainter, fainter until it
is no more.
my eyes close and dreams begin.

Copyright 2001 Jim Kittelberger. All Rights Reserved.

2009-03-04T09:38:00.001-08:00

"A VERY SPECIAL CREATION"
By Jim Kittelberger

Wham, Bam, Drrr, Zing, Wing..The sounds from the girl factory were loud and frequent.

There are many sections within the factory. There is a section for brunettes, redheads, and a special section for blondes. The head girl maker in the hair section is Arno the magnificent.

He is making a special announcement to the whole factory over the loudspeaker system. Your attention please.

We have today received a special order from the great God-O, and he will be making a special trip to our factory to watch our progress. You must follow all orders exactly; we can have no second rate work on this project. If a mistake is made, the offending worker will be sent immediately to REJECTOLAND. There they will have to work on BOYS with spiked hair and freckles. OHHHHHHHHHH, could be heard from the workers, because no one wanted to go there.

In the hair section, Arno was reviewing the hair types. I do not want stringy hair. I do not want a dishwater color. I want hair that reflects Gods sun. AH YES, THAT IS THE COLOR I WANT.

Since I have been made special bigwig-colossal-chief over everybody- major domo great- fantastic- magnificent- very wonderful BOSS, I will follow this project to its completion. The next stop was the eye room.

Now, I do not want vacant looking eyes, I do not want dull looking eyes, I do not want silly dilly eyes, I do not want bird eyes, I do not want snake eyes, I do not want pig eyes, I do not want potato eyes, I do not want buckeyes, I do not want fly eyes, I do not want fish eyes, I do not want glass eyes and I especially do not want red eyes. What the special order requests are blue eyes that reflect the stars and its glitter. Eyes that laugh without words. Eyes that can show kindness. Eyes that will see the good things in life. Eyes that will show love to each person they look upon.

SHAZAMO WALLYZIGZAGS!!! THAT'S THE COLOR I WANT.

Now on to the naming department, where they met the head of the department, Mrs. Alphabetcha.

We need a name that is just right for this special project, Mrs. Alphabetcha. Can you do it? Well ABCDEFGHI am sure I can Magnificent Arno. Now be sure you don't give her a name like Gertrude or Agnes or Helga or Salamiface or Zelda or Brutus or Clarinetlips or Eggplant. I want a name that is regal and feminine. I have just the name for the special project. It is the name of the last Russian czarina and it is very feminine. It is GrouchoOh No, Oh No, that is just a little naming department humor.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

The very best name we have in our department is ALEXANDRA. This is magnificent said Arno the magnificent.

We will now take the parts I have requested to the assembly department. This is Mr. Model Kit, head of the assemblers. Do you have your instructions Mr. Kit? Indeed I do Mr. Arno.

I have instructions to attach the gold as the sun hair to the top of the head. Insert two blue eyes from the special stock with stars in them. Insert the premium brain with a special section added for extra compassion and love. Insert and attach all of the above into a head with the AAAAAAAAAA+ pretty face. I have attached all the other necessities such as fingernails, toenails, a couple of arms, a couple of legs, a belly button and white teeth with a complimentary toothbrush and toothpaste included.

WHALAAAAA! What do you think Mr. Arno?

Perfecto Mr. Kit. I think she is just about ready for shipment.

All of a sudden the room became as bright as the sun and everything became silent and a red carpet appeared on the floor and Mr. God-O appeared and spoke: Ms. Alexandra, I am going to send you to earth to be in the care of two very nice people, who will do the best they can for you and will love you for all your days. So go now and have a very happy life and I will see you again in about ninety years or so and I will want a report, so keep a diary.

August 9, 1999.
(C) copyright 1999 Jim Kittelberger. All Rights Reserved.

2009-03-04T09:37:00.001-08:00

THE SILENT TRANSACTION

By Jim Kittelberger

PREAMBLE: I could not decide which paragraph I wished to use for the last paragraph of the piece. I left it to my editor. My editor, who tells me what she thinks, read the two paragraphs and told me flat out that the last part is way over the top and should be omitted. She further added that it sounded like I was in a rage and that I really didn’t believe any of what I had written. I hate to admit it, but she’s right. That said, it felt therapeutic to write it, like going to a shrink I would suppose, and purging yourself of all that dwells and festers. So I agreed with her that the final paragraph is way too much, but I felt good writing it so I will leave it so you can read it and get angry with me and you’ll feel better also.

The cash register rings up the amount to be tendered and the cashier looks at the customer with a sullen look on her face. The customer, me, looks back at her. “One fifty”, comes out of the cashier’s mouth, as she is looking somewhere but not at me. I write the check and hand it to her. She deposits it in the cash register and resumes looking at that somewhere place. The bag that she shoved my purchase into sits on the counter, and after another interlude of silence, I assume we are done. I pick up the bag and walk out of the store, thus ending another transaction in the new screw you era.

Does this sound familiar or am I just one of the saps of the world that everyone likes to play this trick on? Maybe it’s just been a bad week. Twice this week, I have tried to make small talk with a person in a retail store, and twice I have had the person look at me like I had small pox, although one did manage to nod his head before he grabbed his change and fled. My God, I’m sixty-five years old, reasonably presentable and certainly not threatening in any way. I don’t think they believe I’m going to ask for a handout, nor do I believe they think I’m a Moonie getting ready to hand them a flower in exchange for a donation. I think they and the sullen cashier are just a few of the examples of the age we now live in, that seems to becoming more and more insular, and much less anxious to reach out for human contact.

These examples are of course not the norm but the exception. But it happens enough that I am aware when it does. I am also aware of one reason for this unsociability. A huge technological wave arrived in the world a decade or two ago. That wave was greeted by all of us with open arms. The new age brought with it the marvel of our time, the computer. And I need not list what that brought with it, video games, computer games, computer nerds, and the rest of us, who will sit at a computer for hours on end, (which of course, I am guilty of much too often). People of all ages have taken to these activities with relish, but not without giving up something. That is the time that could have been spent with other live actual people talking, sharing thoughts and feelings. The one common problem created is that most of the new high tech pursuits are one person to a computer or television. Children take to these new pursuits like a duck to water because they are just plain fun. But what they give up or what we allow them to give up, is the give and take of playing with other children where they can learn the greatest lessons of their life, how to develop social skills. Too easy? Maybe.

Well now you know my dilemma. What should I do about it? I hope to have many more years on this earth and I intend to keep going out in public. But if the trend, as I see it continues, and rudeness is the way of the future, I suppose I should start now working on my rude tactics so I can fit right in. I will initially, and this will be the easiest, change my facial expression to one of sullenness or even surliness, and trim my vocabulary to words of one syllable that could be spoken with a grunt. One technique that I think I will like would go like this: someone speaks to me and I answer him or her with my Robert DeNiro ‘Taxi’ imitation, “Me? You’re talking to me? Then I’ll just sneer and walk away. Yeah that’s good; hey I’m liking this. Rude is good. Perhaps as a warm up before going out into public, I’ll bite off a head of a bat or maybe a sparrow ala Ozzie Osbourne to get into the mood. My television choices should also change, I’m thinking with my new persona that Howard Stern would be a top choice. He, of the tell-it-like-it-is genre is about as classy as it will get in my new world. I’m much too old to start wearing clothes that are much too large and letting them hang down to my kneecaps seems a little dangerous. But I can start wearing any caps I may have backwards or sideways, and perhaps I should put a propeller on top, it wouldn’t look any stupider, I don’t think. Well after I’ve done all these things to make me fit in with the new rude to the ears, rude to the eyes, rude to any sensibilities I may have left, the world may have changed back to a place much more pleasant to live in, or I may have developed Alzheimer’s and not care anymore.

2009-03-04T09:36:00.001-08:00

THE BIRDMAN OF CARTER'S LAKE
By Jim Kittelberger

Winter is finally coming to an end, but not soon enough for me. Cabin fever has definitely set in after five months of self imposed indoor activities. Retirement is great, but some days tend to get a little too long. Today was one of those. A lazy type day with weather not yet nice enough to start working the gardens, but with just enough change in the air to give you hope. I hadn't yet put on shoes this morning, choosing instead to amble from room to room in my soft slippers. I'd brewed myself a cup of lemon and honey tea, the taste of which seems lazy to me, and it matched my mood. Sitting in my comfortable reclining chair, I force myself not to recline and sip my tea, my eyes roaming over everything and nothing in particular. Not unlike a child, I'm thinking what to get into next when my eyes stop on the large old trunk sitting near the fireplace. I haven't looked in there for years.

The trunk is large and black, with a large brass lock, which has never been locked since we've owned it, and I'm not sure we even have the key. Inside, a wooden tray is filled with baby clothes and little shoes. Items that my wife is unable to dispose of because they evoke silent memories of the three children we co-produced, the best and purest evidence of our being on this earth. Under the tray is a witch's hat wrapped in tissue, a decoration from Halloween that it seems didn't get put away in the attic. Several owners manuals, one each for an old VCR, a computer scanner and our current microwave, were placed in here so we would know right where they were if we needed them. Yeah, right. Down one more layer lays a red book nestled atop a favorite sweater of mine from days gone by.

It turns out to be a forty-five year old telephone book. I wonder how that got in here, I mutter, as I start leafing through the book that is considerably smaller than the one we currently use, and the exchanges used in those days consisted of two letters and five numbers.

The yellow pages are more interesting. Coal companies are listed, are there local coal companies anymore? I don't think so. There are a lot of contractors and construction companies. Things were good in those days. Dance studios, we had three in the book. When I got to the F's in the book I discovered five, count them, five pages of full service filling stations. Oh those were the good old days, to be sure.

I sat on the floor over an hour with my legs crossed Indian style until I was not certain I would ever get them straight again. I decided I had better get off the floor, and the recliner looked real good. It was. After moving my body this way and that, it melted into the chair in gratitude. My eyes seem to be getting a little grainy as I continue reading through the telephone classifieds. As my mind starts to fog over, sleep, I know, is not far behind. I read one last classified for Seeburg coin operated jukeboxes. "Oh yes, how well I remember those wonderful machines," is my last conscious thought as I drift off to sleep.

As Johnny Ray's song 'Walking In The Rain' finished up, Paul fished in his pocket for another nickel. He found one nestled between a stick of Black Jack gum and a ticket stub from the drive in movie he had gone to last weekend. The jukebox was filled with really cool songs, but he had money for just one more. He was staring at the choices when his friend Jeff, who could not stand more than one minute of silence, chided him,
"So, I suppose you're going to play another sloppy slow one?"
"Yeah, so what if I do?" Paul answered back. And in fact he was pushing G2 to hear Pat Boone sing 'Love Letters In The Sand'.
"It's just that since you met that stupid Mary Jane, you've gotten so darn quiet. What the heck's with you? Jeff said.
I couldn't really say, I thought to myself. I'd had dates before, but something about this girl was different.

I was thinking about last Saturday night at the drive-in and smiling as Jeff discovered he again didn't have my complete attention.
"Oh for crying out loud. You don't need me here, I'll see you in school." Jeff said as he left shaking his head.

I had been thinking of Mary Jane and her clean smelling hair and an evening spent testing the endurance of human lips after long-term use. Somehow it didn't seem important that I wasn't paying attention, I was thinking about next weekend.

After some fancy talking and assurances to each of our families that we would abide by the 'unwritten moral code', seriously on her part, grudgingly on mine, we received their reluctant blessings and use of my parents’ car to attend a dance out of town. This was pretty exciting stuff for seventeen year olds, and as we headed north on U.S. 13, Mary Jane snuggled close and laid her head on my shoulder. The length of time needed to arrive at our destination we estimated to be about an hour. We drove through farmlands dotted with gold and tan pastureland, on a black asphalt road that meandered through the fall countryside in a more or less straight line, and watched cows grazing, farmers on tractors, and counted mail pouch signs on the sides of the barns. But to us, or at least to me, we were driving on the yellow brick road. A new world was opening up in my mind, a world of new freedoms, a world of unknown adventures; an exciting world, all new and maybe a little scary. My mind had done a 180-degree turn driving down this beautiful highway, and transformed me from a boy into a young man with hopes and dreams for the future. But those hopes and dreams were predicated it seemed to me at that moment in time on that one person sitting next to me. With her beside me, my life seemed to open up and any thing seemed possible.

A large illuminated sign appeared just ahead informing us that the road to everything wonderful, Carters Lake, Inc. was just ahead. The attendant directed us to follow the arrows to the parking lot, which we figured must be the area ahead that looked like a cloud had descended to earth. The dust was heavy and I knew I would have to wash the car before my father saw it again, or my days in borrowed wheels would be over forever. We maneuvered through the crushed gravel to a spot pointed to by boys in brightly colored vests completely covered with dust, where we parked. As we walked through rows of spruce trees, planted to leave the sight and dust of the parking areas behind us, we emerged on the other side to a vista of green. Sidewalks meandered between trees of maple, elm and oak. Soon we could hear the sounds of waves lapping on the shore off to our left just before we sighted a large white-sided building with a brightly lit marquee proudly announcing the band of the weekend. Just by luck the band this weekend was the Glenn Miller band, still one of the favorites even without its famous leader, who was killed in World War II. If there was a band that was tailor made for dancers, this was it. As we got closer to the door, we could hear the very familiar sounds of Moonlight Serenade. Handing over our tickets and collecting our stubs, we entered a huge room. Tables were surrounding a well-waxed dance floor. Omnipresent in its bigness and glitter was a revolving, reflecting glass ball hovering over the floor. Reflecting glitter bounced off the dancers as the couples twirled to the music of the band that was situated at one end of the dance floor. The band members were dressed in formal attire and male and female band singers were seated on either side of the bandleader. When they started the next song, String of Pearls, our feet could not hold still any longer. Mary Jane was a good dancer, thank God, because I had to cheat to barely be eligible for fair status. But the music and the atmosphere overcame all our hesitation and we swayed in time to the music. Mary Jane laid her head on my shoulder during the slow tunes and I was sunk. I was madly in love before the band signaled intermission.

The weather still felt warm even though autumn was getting near. I held Mary Jane's hand as we strolled over a bridge that led to the beach. The waves were lapping on the shore, and the water looked black in the darkness. The breeze blowing in over the water gave promise that cooler weather would soon be upon us, but not tonight. The sand felt warm and Mary Jane removed her shoes and teased me to do the same. I did so with no further coaxing. We walked hand in hand for a while without talking. Another couple passed us going the other way, but except for them, the beach was ours.
"You look very pretty tonight," I said, because I couldn't think of anything else to say.
"I could say the same about you. I've never seen you so dressed up before," Mary Jane answered with a smile.
Paul stopped and turned toward Mary Jane, took her hands in his, and kissed her tenderly on the lips. As the kiss ended, Mary Jane threw her arms around his neck and kissed him hard. The kiss was a long one and they swayed from side to side, neither wishing to stop. Just then, Paul felt something warm and moist land on the top of his head. They broke apart immediately as Paul looked up at the offending sea gull and shook his fist at it. Mary Jane stepped back and stared at the mess slowly oozing down from the top of his head. The look of shock and mortification on Paul's face kept her from laughing.
"Maybe you should stick your head in the lake?" she suggested shyly.
"I know what I should stick in the lake," Paul bellowed, stricken with embarrassment, "that damn bird."
He turned, ran fully clothed into the lake, and plunged his head beneath the waves. As he came out of the water, still looking like he wanted to sock someone, Mary Jane was standing at the edge of the water waiting. The look on her face was a look of sympathy, but as he came closer she could not contain herself any longer, and a small chuckle escaped her lips, as she watched his face. He looked at her with what started as anger, but as the embarrassment ebbed, the anger went also and he joined in. Their chuckles turned into knee slapping laughter as they recalled the story over and over. Finally he put his arms around her.
"I think I'm in no shape to return to the dance." He said.
"I don't care, I've loved every minute we've been here and anything after this would be an anti-climax anyway," Mary Jane said as she smiled at his discomfort.
On the road home, they retold the story over and over. Each time they put the emphasis on a different part of the story, and it got funnier and funnier. They laughed until they were exhausted. It would be a story that would be only theirs for the rest of their lives.

"Wake up Paul, it's almost time to eat," she said, as she gently touched his shoulder.
As he roused himself, he reached up and took her hand.
"I was dreaming about a young girl I used to know many years ago. She was a pretty thing as I remember. We went to a dance up at Carter's Lake and, well maybe you don't want to hear anymore of this, because it involves kissing on the beach and hand holding, and maybe it's too much for your tender virgin ears," he said, as he smiled lovingly at this woman who has been his wife for nearly forty-five years.
"Oh for crying out loud 'birdman', she said, get yourself up and let's eat."

Mary Jane reached out her hand to help him up, and they hugged before he followed her to the kitchen.

Jim Kittelberger 2001. All Rights Reserved.

2009-03-04T09:35:00.001-08:00

THE VILLAGE
By Jim Kittelberger

My eyes were burning, so I opened the car window to let some fresh air in to circulate in the hopes it would revive me enough to keep me going maybe another fifty miles. The final trick, if the fresh air doesn't do the job, is to turn the a/c on to coldest, until I get so darn cold, any thoughts of sleep are frozen out.

I like driving through the night on my business trips. I seem to think more clearly with darkness all around me. I have also convinced myself that the darkness helps mend frazzled nerve endings caused by trying to do too much, too fast.

A single flickering light appears in the distance, breaking the total black of the pre-dawn night. As it gets closer, it loses it's 'out of this world mysteriousness', and the single light becomes two as the approaching car closes the distance between us quickly. Another sojourner in the night breaking the speed limit, as I am also guilty of doing. He, believing as I do, I suppose, that we are solitary beings in a time warp of darkness that will cover our crime. The lights are starting to bother my eyes and I'm all out of tricks to stay awake, so I know that my solitary time is about over and I start thinking about breakfast.

The sun rose quickly this morning, changing the horizon I was driving into from deep black to charcoal gray with strands of red and yellow. Which, if you believe the old saying:
Red sky at night, sailors delight
Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning, or something like that, promised a bumpy day.

The village, which was the first community I came upon that looked big enough to have a restaurant, was of medium size and quite pretty with small, clean, tidy streets, and a town square of grass and trees and benches. It was indeed square, bordered by nicely maintained vegetation. But food was on my mind.

The streets surrounding the square were red brick. On the opposite side of the street from the square were small businesses. Most of the facades were in the Williamsburg style and presented a unified look from the outside. There were some, though, that spurned the look of the majority and presented the patrons of their business an independent look. Perhaps, thinking that it was more eye-catching being different. In fact, one did catch my eye. It presented to the community two plate glass windows with the entrance in the middle. On the window was the logo I was looking for. "HOMETOWN CAF", followed by "You'll think your mama's doing the cooking." I was sold.

I straddled a stool at the counter thinking that I'd get faster service here than the usually slower service at a table. Finding just what I was looking for on the much-used menu, I ordered. Quantity and speed were my two basic requirements for breakfast. As I sat waiting to see if my simple criteria were to be met, I sipped on a cup of hot Earl Gray tea and glanced at the restaurants advertising emblazoned on the mirror behind the counter. It announced the ordinary kind of things you would expect to see there. The special of the day, a request that you remember that this is the place of the most famous milkshake in town, and the Hometown Cafe logo with the words-SINCE 1935 THE PLACE TO EAT AND MEET. Everyone seemed to be acquainted and the talk seemed friendly and animated, which left a stranger at the counter pretty much on his own, so I grabbed a morning paper and read until breakfast arrived.

"Damn", I said aloud.

"I'm sorry", the rather skinny man two stools to my right said.

"Oh, I beg your pardon", I said. "I must have spoken out loud, I didn't mean to do that."

"Hey, that all right, sometimes I get so mad myself that I want to throw the paper on the floor", he replied, smiling understandingly.

"I usually don't speak to myself out loud, but this article really ticks me off. This crumb kills two people, gets eighteen years, and then he's back out on the street. This is not right. They give repetitive dope users life in prison, for crying out loud, and they're not hurting anyone but themselves. It just boils my ass; I'm sorry, now listen to me, I'm cussing out loud."

My companionable counter-mate smiled to himself. "Do you ever get so angry that you'd like to stand up and tell it like it is?"

"You bet I do", I said, "but who listens to us? You have to be somebody to talk and have someone listen these days."

"Well, my friend, that's not necessarily true. Did you take a look at that poster on the mirror there?" he asked, pointing to a red, white, and blue poster with American flags bordering the top and bottom. The message between the flags proclaimed our right as citizens of the USA to speak our piece. It also stated that the next gathering of opinion-ators would be today at high noon in the public square.

"What exactly is that all about? I asked.

My skinny friend turned on his stool to face me. "You've heard about the English allowing anyone who wishes to get up on a soapbox in Hyde Park in London and spout off about anything that's on their mind?"

"Yes, I have, but is that still going on?"

"Well here in the village we have the same sort of thing, with a little bit of difference," he said with a small smile.

"Tell me about it." I said interested.

"We believe that differences of opinion can cause dissension, which we have found is bad for the village. So from time to time we hold a town meeting, which the whole village attends. We allow the dissenters to speak their piece. The problems are ironed out forthwith and we can then go forward together."

"The whole village?" I asked surprised and becoming just a little skeptical of what I was hearing.

"The whole village," he repeated, "We villagers live closely together, and have very few secrets from one another. The town meetings foster a closeness, and any problems are quickly identified, and we are better able to fix any problems then and there."

He paused, and then continued. "In the towns square, free speech and thought are the rule. It can be fun and it would be good for you to get some of the things that are eating at you, like what you read in the paper, out of your system. It'll do you a world of good, it'll purge your soul of bad thoughts, and your mind will be cleansed of all the rottenness that goes on in this world today."

I listened to him, not knowing if I had run into an itinerant preacher, or maybe just a nut, or maybe what he was saying, if it was true, might be a hoot. I could afford to take the day off, and then get back on the road tonight if I could get a little sleep.

I agreed, and my skinny friend said to meet him at the entrance to the restaurant at 11:55, and he would accompany me across the square. We shook hands and parted, which left me some time to kill until then.

I decided to see what else the little village offered, and started walking around the square on the business side of the street. The businesses were the normal service type stores as in most towns, a hardware stood next to the restaurant, followed in succession by a men's clothing shop, a women's clothier, a toy store, and a book store completed one side of the square. On another side were city offices and the local police. On the third side were amusements, a movie house, a small bowling alley, a bar, a video rental store and a pizza shop. On the fourth side of the square were the bank, a loan company, an antique store, and finally, a computer/office supply store. Not unlike any small town in America, and in fact, maybe a little bit better than most, with the essentials required to keep the populace happy and home.

In a popular and civilized move, the city fathers had also switched to vertical parking, instead of parallel, with two-hour meters for a nickel, but only on this side of the street. There was no parking on the town square side of the street. Strange, he thought.

At exactly 11:45, on the sidewalk directly across from the Hometown cafe, a man dressed much like an English castle guard appeared, and began patrolling the sidewalk this side of the square. On each of the other three sides, the identical event was taking place. I thought to myself that perhaps they were taking the 'English Hyde Park' analogy a bit too far. The square itself was completely devoid of people; not one person was anywhere to be seen.

"This is really strange", I thought, almost like a pageant timed and choreographed to the second. A make believe headline ran through my head, "MAYBERRY AND PLEASANTVILLE TEACH CIVICS, FILM AT ELEVEN". I smiled at my small joke, although a slight feeling of apprehension had crept in, but I shrugged it off, thinking why ruin the experience. I'd have a great time repeating the story over and over again to my wife and coworkers.

At exactly 11:59, my skinny friend appeared and we walked together across the street. The 'patrolman' nodded to my skinny friend and at exactly noon, we entered the town square.

It was incredible. It looked like the entire population of the town was assembled around the bandstand that stood in the exact middle of the square.

"It looks to me like everybody in town must be here." I said, still amazed by the turnout.

"That's a very accurate guess," my friend said, "as I said before we take these gatherings very seriously and it would not be good manners to miss one." He continued as he looked toward the bandstand trying to catch someone's eye. He caught a man's eye standing near the bandstand checking names off a clipboard. "Excuse me," he said, and left to confer with him.

I stood, looking around at the crowd. Something seemed odd to me, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. The men, women, and children were standing in separate orderly groups, which seemed a little strange. The females all wore pale blue dresses, which seemed really strange for today's women. But then I figured out what it was that seemed most odd. Each separate group was standing at what we called in the military, at ease. At ease is not exactly at attention, but also not at rest, and they all stood quietly, that's what it was, the quiet among so many people.
"Weird," I thought it's almost like I was beamed down in the middle of an Amish community, but not exactly. Something seemed chilling about this wonderful show of civic awareness and uniformity.

Then to my surprise, skinny-man appeared on the bandstand, and everyone went completely silent.

"Citizens of the new way, our beloved country is in crisis. We have become an amoral society. The freedoms that we so cherish have become freedom to slide into moral corruption. Drugs pervade our great country and we stand by seemingly unable or unwilling to control that which leads our young to degrade themselves in depravity and license. The ideals that we have strived to attain have been trashed as old fashioned, not worthy goals. In their place we celebrate excess. Our hero's are nonexistent. Why is this happening? I say to you, it is because we have no leadership, or leadership too weak to make decisions that might hurt someone's feelings or step on a freedom that perhaps, no not perhaps, a freedom that should be abolished for the welfare of the majority. The new way has the answer and the backbone to do what is right. The new way is the right way, it is our way, and in the future our example will lead the way for the whole country."

He stood back, put his hand over his heart, and stared with those cold eyes seemingly at each person there. The eyes imbedding in each the righteousness of his words.
The crowd erupted with the chant "so be it, so be it, so be it," their eyes glistening with love and hope for this man for whom they have waited all their lives.
They continued until he stepped forward and raised his hand for silence.
"The new way, the way of promise for the future, also has the humility to know that new idea's are welcome and indeed solicited. With the thought that we are all responsible for our actions and words, we begin."

"Citizen Will Gunther."
"As you all know, I'm a man of few words," Will began, "and I don't much like to complain, but I have to tell you that what I pay to have my garbage hauled is outrageous, and it should be lowered." "So there, I've said my piece and what say you?"

With the words still in the air, the applause began, and thumbs throughout the crowd turned upward as the crowd shouted and showed their approval.

Two other men quickly followed. Subject one was cleaner streets, and subject two was the suggestion they needed more jails. Both were given thumbs up.

Speaker number four, Citizen Joseph Miller did not meet the same fate. He climbed the steps of the bandstand and stood front and center, stuck his chin out and began.

"You all know me," Miller began, "and I don't complain much, but there comes a time when what's right is right, and individual choice should be a man's right." He paused as shouts here and there among the crowd started up.
"I know that's not a popular belief around here, and I usually agree with the majority and go along, but maybe I've been wrong." Now the crowd was becoming angry as one of them had the audacity to suggest that an individual's right was as important as the majority, or indeed, that he had any individual rights not allowed by the town.
Will ignored the shouts.
"It's my right," speaking over the dissension, "to paint my house whatever color I want, whenever I want, without having to get approval from anyone."

The shouts began to drown out Miller, and a sea of down turned thumbs showed throughout the crowd, which threatened to become a mob.
The skinny man, off to the side of the speaker's platform, nodded to several very big men who proceeded to escort Citizen Miller off the bandstand and hustled him into a small structure partially hidden by large trees. When the doors closed, the unmistakable sounds of a beating could be heard. The crowd expecting just that clucked their approval, and talked among themselves that he got what he asked for.
"This would teach him the lesson he had been aching to get."
"How dare he even think such things, let alone speak them out in public." "Unthinkable."

I stood toward the side of the speaker’s platform, literally feeling shivers go
up and down my spine, and my legs felt weak. Perhaps, taking poor, brave Mr. Miller away and beating him was just an elaborate staging of this grotesque play for my benefit. No, I was sure it was not. If it was staged, it was certainly not for my edification, I was not of any real importance to what was going on here. The lesson to be learned was for the gathered assembly standing before me. My guess was they got the message. As I was gathering myself back to some semblance of sanity, Skinny man stepped forward to the speaker's platform.

"A moment of clarification to a recent visitor to our town, I believe is warranted. I wish to explain to him, and all assembled, that Citizen Miller is in no real danger and will be as right as rain after a brief period of re-indoctrination and rereading of the town charter to which all citizens must adhere. Citizen Miller has always been a troublemaker, so it could be said he brings all his trouble upon himself. Now, we will say no more about it."
Whereupon the crowd broke into applause and chanting of "so be it, so be it, so be it," endorsing and empowering the leaders words and thoughts, until he raised his hand for silence.

"As I promised our visitor, he will get his opportunity to address you today on any subject he wishes. I want you all to treat him as an honorary, temporary citizen of our town."

"So be it, so be it, so be it," again chorused up from the assembled, filling me with the fear of many throughout history, the fear of impotence against power, one against many. I felt repulsion for the acceptance of the unthinking people as they endorsed wholeheartedly whatever their leaders espoused. Because I knew of no other recourse besides turning and running away, I started for the steps that led to the platform.

"What the hell am I going to say up there?" I thought. The proceedings of the afternoon in this strange town with these strange people had stifled my thought processes. My brain was filled instead with feelings of astonishment, fear, and bewilderment.
"I wasn't worried about making a fool of myself in front of these descendants of other mobs, from other times. Although, I must say, the feeling that I was jumping into a Roman arena with a multitude of unfriendly gladiators, and awaiting the verdict of the bloodthirsty spectators did not completely escape me."

I made my way to the center of the speaker's platform, and grasped the podium, trying to still the quivering in my legs. Off to the right, but in full view, stood the leader. His presence dominated everyone by a force unique to only a few in each century. What is it that allows these few to twist the thoughts and actions of a group or a nation to his will? The physicality of Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, was not awe-inspiring. If they had any common feature, maybe it was the eyes, dark, cold eyes, and the complete absence of feeling for the human race. The Citizen Leader, from my short acquaintance of him and this village, had all the earmarks of a budding despot, despite his less than commanding physical stature, and yes his eyes were cold and dark even as he smiled his welcome to me.

I wish I could say here that I took command of the platform, and gave a speech second only to Martin Luther King's 'I had a dream' speech, and that I swayed them all in the direction of justice for all. That I convinced them that Citizen Miller was right, and he could paint his house any color he wished; but I can't. I stuttered and I stammered and finally I apologized for not being prepared and awkwardly made my way off the platform, feeling like the coward I was.

My only thought was to get out of this village as fast as my cowardly feet and high-powered automobile could take me. But as I was about to make my way out of the square, I was stopped by several of the leaders large henchmen, who informed me that The Leader would like a few words with me before I left, if that was convenient with me. To save my pride, whatever was left of it, I said certainly and followed them.

I was led to the same small structure that Miller had been taken to. Maybe I wasn't going to get off so easily after all. I had no other choice but to enter as the large men surrounded me offered no chance of escape. So I acquiesced again to the meeting and entered. The inside of the structure was Spartan with furnishings, a wooden table and two chairs. Dark stains on the floor, reminders of Citizen Millers visit, and others before I am sure, gave me much discomfort, as I thought I might also be adding some blood to the grisly decor. The Leader, already seated at one of the chairs, motioned for me to sit at the other. I did.
"Before you leave us," he began, "I want to make you aware of a few facts. One, what you see here is only the beginning of a new and better form of government. As you have seen, we have a village without problems, without disagreements, that is progressing forward arm in arm to achieve an ideal society. We think alike, we work together, and we succeed together. We believe that freedom for all in all things only creates babble, not unlike the Tower of Babel, too many voices, too many opinions only creates division and despair. The way to success and achievement is through one voice, one direction for the common good."

"Two, what you see here is only the beginning. In the next state election, I will run for and win the governorship, and what is good for this village will be good for the entire state. Then the entire country will see and compare and it is my firm belief that they will choose the new way."

"Three, if you find enough courage in yourself to inform your fellow countrymen of the new way, you will find that this village speaks with one tongue, and that voice will deny everything you say. You will be just another crackpot, your story will have a shelf life of one day, and your life will be ruined. So don't waste your breath, just keep looking at the news, and someday we will meet again citizen."

He smiled at me, but those eyes, those dark evil eyes, told me more than the smile ever could.

I was nearing the town’s edge, and was wondering if I would ever again be able to drive through the dark nights believing all was right with the world, or I wouldn't be stopped just up the road for a security check. These thoughts and many more were coursing though my head as I glanced back and read the sign that proclaimed I was leaving the sleepy village of Munich, Ohio, Please come back.

I floored the accelerator and trembled.

Jim Kittelberger 2001. All Rights Reserved.

2009-03-04T09:34:00.001-08:00

THE INTERNET

An Essay by Jim Kittelberger

Talk about being absorbed, about being sucked into a world that will transfix you for hours on end, then you have to be talking about the Internet.

By clicking on to C-SPAN, I can be listening to an author talking about his current book, or listen to Garrison Keillor’s PRARIE HOME COMPANION while I am browsing through the TATE in Britain, the METROPOLITAN in New York, or the BRANDWINE gallery in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. Depending on your tastes, you will certainly find what you’re looking for in this galaxy of plenty. This has to be as close to nirvana as you can get unless you sit at my wife’s table and savor the aromas.

I have never been a sophisticate in things of the world. I’ve always felt it cramped the experience of discovery, the pure joy of seeing something for the first time, of enjoying those things that are not commonplace in my world. In fact, I made a conscious decision early on that to replace those feelings with a veneer of worldliness was not for me. So with this background, you can see why I am bowled over by the Internet.

The Internet has allowed me to meander back to the things of my childhood, the things that kids remember. Like the comic books I read, they’re on the net, or at least the covers are. The bicycle that I loved is also there, a ROADMASTER with a brake light and other features that knocked me out at the time. You can learn a foreign language; you can even chat with someone on the other side of the planet. You can visit the biggest flea market in the world, E-BAY.

Now there are some who snub this electronic miracle to their detriment. It can teach, it is THE communication development (e-mail) that keeps families and friends and indeed business in contact, without even affixing a stamp. It has become a boon to the elderly and retired of the world. It opens up new interests in folks who thought they would retire to a rocking chair, but instead they have developed new interests and discovered new talents they didn’t even know they had. And finally what most of us go to the Internet for, it amuses us, big time.

2009-03-04T09:33:00.001-08:00

THE LONG STEEL TRACK

A CHILDREN’S TALE FOR OLDER ADULTS

By Jim Kittelberger

The Blue Engine Line pulled into the station at Littletown, Ohio. It belched one last puff of smoke, and one last shot of steam, which created a very large cloud obscuring the little station house. If trains were people, it would seem that blue engine was ready for the train retirement home, or as was the fact, for the scrap heap. Blue train had been working very hard for many, many years, carrying passengers from their homes into the big city. It was good at its job. It would proudly announce its arrival at each station with a loud toot of its whistle, and carry the people safely to their destinations. But times became hard for all the people in Ohio including the farmers and they had to work much harder to have enough money to feed their families. The owners of the Blue Engine Line also had less money, so they cut back on upkeep on their trains. Well, Blue train just like people needed someone to keep it clean and neat and pretty and oiled and in topnotch mechanical shape. But the owners didn’t have the money so Blue train started getting a little dirtier and shabbier and not in very good mechanical shape, until finally it was so tired and uncared for, it acted old. So as time passed and the company had more money, it was decided that instead of fixing up Blue train, it should be retired and shoved aside. They would purchase a new shiny train, a red one, the Red Engine Line.

Blue train was oh so blue and sad as it sat on the siding of the station, but at least the owners had not send it to the trash heap, but instead just ignored it. So it sat there day after day, month after month, year after year. Children would come with their parents and climb up into the engine and pretend they were engineers speeding down the tracks. Blue train liked that, but he was sure he had some more miles left in him, but the owners had forgotten all about him. That is until one day when the most important man in Ohio, the Governor of the state and many mayors were aboard the Red Engine Line on the way back to Capital city to sign a very important bill that would help all the people of Ohio. The night was moonless, and dark. Snow was swirling around the big train as it barreled through the night, speeding them to the Capital. When all of a sudden with no warning, it started slowing in spite of anything the engineer could do, until finally it stopped in the middle of nowhere. The big engine wheezed and sputtered and started to make the oddest noise the engineer had ever heard. It stated making noises like a coffee maker, it sounded like water boiling and percolating and getting louder. It was the great boiler building up a huge head of steam and not being able to use it for moving the train. Something had broken and the steam kept building until something was going to blow soon. The engineer, not knowing what to do, ordered all the workers off the engine and he followed them soon after, and they ran off to a safe distance, and stood in the blowing snow waiting for whatever was about to happen. Well it finally did happen. The boiler, not able to contain its hot steam one moment longer, blew out a huge hole in the bottom of the boiler and the steam and fire exploded under the big locomotive. Farmers, who saw it, later reported that the sparks that came out of the boiler were better than any Fourth of July fireworks show they had ever seen. And the steam created a cloud bigger than four of Zeke Smiths biggest barns.

The owners, who were riding with the Governor, were mortified. Here sat the most important man in Ohio with a very important job to do sitting here in the middle of pastures and cornfields, still many miles from the Capital, not moving. They huddled together and got out their maps of all their tracks and stations, arguing and discussing and arguing again. They finally decided they needed the closest train available to get here and rescue the governor and the mayors. They looked again and again, and decided that the closest station to them was a little town called Littletown. So the call went out. Get up steam on any available train and send it as soon as possible to rescue the very important people. The Littletown stationmaster replied yes sir, yes sir twice because he was so nervous. He looked at his manifest and was aghast, he had said yes before he realized that all his trains were out of the station at other places. That is, all except, the Blue train. But it had not been used for years and was old and tired. But he had no choice now, because if he called back and told them, they would surely fire him for not realizing he had no trains available.

Blue train was in the middle of another nights long sleep, when he noticed a small army of men coming in his direction. Before he knew what was happening, they had lit his boiler and the steam was making the old engine come alive again. As quickly as possible Blue train was connected to the main line. The engineer pushed the old throttle and the Blue engine started to move. At first it was like an old fellow with stiff muscles getting on his feet after sitting for a long while, he groaned and moaned; but soon, as the steam ran through its lines and twists and turns it started to feel good, until he was flying down the tracks feeling as if he were a teenager again. Soon, it seems in record time, with all its lights blazing and its horn tooting and whistle whistling, it came around the final turn and there was the Governors train. The Governor could not stop thanking the owners for their great wisdom in sending for this fine train, and the owners could not stop thanking the stationmaster for his wise choice in sending this fine old train.

So, I wish I could say that old Blue train was back to work on a daily basis, but time could not be reversed and old Blue was just that, old. But old Blue was given a special siding all to itself, and banners proclaimed that this train was the train that rescued the Governor of Ohio in a snowstorm and carried him to Capital city where he signed important bills that helped all the people of Ohio. He was a hero.

There is a moral to this story. We all get old and our bodies may become smaller and less robust, but inside all of us dwells a spirit that burns eternally bright, just like Old Blue Train in Littletown Ohio.

2009-03-04T09:32:00.001-08:00

The Ring
By Jim Kittelberger

Lotta Stores is bored. Lotta is eight years old and is a nice little girl. Her family is very rich, and she can have anything that money can buy, but she is very lonely. She has a nurse to help her dress and bathe and brush her hair. There is also a maid and a butler around. Her daddy is always busy making money and her mama is always going to teas and garden parties and things like that. She wishes she had a brother or sister or a dog or a cat or a bird or a fish or a horse, but alas she is not allowed to have any pets. But most of all Lotta wishes she had a friend.

Today, the weather outside is terrible, it's raining and thundering, and blowing, so she is not allowed to go out. She is told to amuse herself. Her home is at the top of her fathers' biggest building. At street level is the entrance to "THEGREATSTUFFSTORE". The store is five stories tall. Offices of the store are on floors six to ten. Floors rented out to other business are on eleven to forty nine. At the very top, on floor fifty, is where Lotta and her parents live. There are lots of windows but no blinds because no one is tall enough to look in. She can look out her window and see birds flying below. People on the street look like little toys walking around. Since she is alone most of the time, she uses her imagination and makes up stories in her head. Sometimes when she looks down and sees the little people and cabs and buses, she holds her hand in front of her face while she is looking down and imagines she can pick up whole handfuls of people and cars. If she is extremely lonely she pretends that she turns her hand over and all the little people and cars are on her palm and she talks to them. Usually the people are very scared, but she talks real nice to them and they calm down. One day as she was talking to her palm people, a boy of eighteen, told her, "I know just what you mean, I'm an only child also and there were many times I wished I had someone to play with or especially to talk to. I had so many questions that I couldn't ask my parents. They were too busy or I was too embarrassed to ask them."
"Yes, yes, that's exactly right. I have so many questions and my mama and daddy are too busy for me and that's when I wish I had a friend." Lotta said excitedly discovering that someone else felt the same way.
"Can I ask you what your name is?" Lotta asked, a little nervous.
"Sure you can. My name is Ozzie, actually it's Oscar. That was one bad name to have when I was younger. Kids made fun of me and it made it hard to make friends, and so many times I wanted to ask my parents why did you name me that? I guess it was my moms favorite uncles name so she just didn't think what it would do to me. But when you get older, it's O.K. you learn how to handle those things." Ozzie said smiling at Lotta.
Lotta was beaming. She loved talking to Ozzie, he was like a big brother. He knows what problems and questions I need answered.
Just then Ozzie said, "I am going to have to go now Lotta, I have to get to the other side of town before three o'clock and I will have to change buses three times to get there."
"Oh no, do you really have to go? Lotta asked, feeling sad that she would probably not see him again. All of the sudden a great idea occurred to her. "Wait right here Ozzie, I will be right back." As she laid him gently down on the windowsill. "Don't fall." She said and off she ran.

She ran to the elevator and told the attendant that she wanted to go down to the store. The man asked her what floor and she said. "Please take me to the toy floor." The man knowing who she was said, "Yes Miss Lotta, here we go." When she arrived at the toy floor, she ran directly to the boy's section and the model cars. She told the lady that she wanted to take two of the model cars that had little engines in them. I would like the red sports car and the black pickup truck. Everyone knew Lotta and gave her what she wanted. They would just write it down and it would be O.K. The lady came back with the two she wanted and off she flew back to the elevator. When she arrived back at the apartment she went directly to the windowsill, and Ozzie was still there, gazing at the birds flying outside the window.
Beaming, Lotta sat the two vehicles down on the coffee table. Ozzie crawled back up on her palm and Lotta asked, "What if you had your own car? Would that help you get to where you have to go quicker?
"Why sure it would, Ozzie said, but I can't afford to have my own car. I am just getting started in this job and it'll be a long time before I can do that."
With that she took Ozzie over to the coffee table and sat him down beside the red car and the black pickup.
"They are yours Ozzie for being so nice to me. I only ask one thing in return."
Ozzie was flabbergasted and couldn't keep his eyes off the red sports car. "Absolutely Lotta, what is you want me to do?"
Lotta asked nervously, "Would you please come to see me every day and let me ask you things and maybe have lunch with me sometimes?"
Ozzie looked at her with understanding eyes. "Of course I will. I would be very glad to come have lunch with you and we can talk about anything you would like. But now I have to fly, well I don't think I can do that, but maybe you can set me back down on the sidewalk."
With that she picked up Ozzie and his red car and put them in the palm of her hand and put her hand in front of her eyes and set them gently down. Thank you for coming Ozzie. Will I see you tomorrow?"
"You sure will," he said as he jumped into the red car and drove off down the street.

That evening as Lotta and her parents were sitting down to eat, her father said, "You seem especially happy tonight sweetheart, it does my heart good to see you smiling. Did something happen today to cause these smiles?"
Lotta gave him a bigger smile yet, and told him about Ozzie and the car. Mr. Stores smile left his face, and he looked at Lotta and asked, "Didn't we have a talk about your imagining."
"Yes we did daddy, but this was real, I did talk to him, I did give him the car, He is going to come back and have lunch with me." Lotta said, a little sad because her daddy would not believe her.
Mr. Stores sat back in his chair and sighed. "Oh Lotta, I love you so much, but I worry about you. You know you were only imagining and Ozzie is not real. Now please eat, and I don't want to hear anymore of this nonsense."

The next day Lotta stood by the window at lunchtime and stared down at the street. "Oh no." she said as she was about to give up waiting, when she saw a little red car pull up to the front of the store and park. She put her hand in front of her face and lowered it, and picked up Ozzie and sat him on the windowsill. "Oh Ozzie, I am so glad you came. I was getting very worried that you would not come." She said breathing a sign of relief.
"Why heck, there was nothing for you to worry about, you're my friend and I said I would be here. Now what's for lunch"?

Ozzie and Lotta had a wonderful lunch and she told him of her fears and asked many questions about growing up, until it was time for him to go. Ozzie said as he was getting ready to go, "I almost forgot. I got you this friendship ring, so you will always remember me and smile." He took the ring and put it on the coffee table, and Lotta started to cry. "Don't cry Lotta, it was supposed to make you happy." He said concerned.
"I am crying because I am so happy. Thank you very much. Now you had better go or you will be late for work. Will I see you tomorrow?
"You will see me every tomorrow until you don't need me anymore." He said as he jumped into her palm and she gently lowered him to the street.

That evening at dinner, Lotta was uncommonly quiet as they ate and her daddy asked, "You seem very quiet tonight, is everything alright?"
"Why yes daddy, everything is fine"
"Well I'm glad to hear that, and I hope you are finished with that silly talk of that imaginary boy and his car. I worry about you and only want you to be happy. By the way, what's that ring you're wearing?"

(C) Copyright 1999 Jim Kittelberger. All Rights Reserved.

2009-03-04T09:31:00.003-08:00

THE SPIDER'S WEB
By Jim Kittelberger

When the suns direction is just right
And if it is within your sight
A long days toil of insect small
Will appear from ground to wall.

A web of one string is all, measuring to human head tall
Designed to capture creature small.
Yet as best laid plans sometimes go awry it's said
Its work bedecks my head.

2009-03-04T09:31:00.001-08:00

THE STREET

By Jim Kittelberger

The boy on his new two-wheeled bicycle wobbles and weaves from side to side on the street that is wet with melting snow. He is being pushed by his dad who yells, “Peddle, keep peddling”. He peddles his new Christmas bicycle as he’s been told, knowing his father is holding him up. His nervousness is evident though as he keeps up a constant stream of inane chatter. Finally, he takes a peek behind to assure himself that his dad is still holding him up, but to his amazement, fright, and wonder his dad is no longer there but watching from hundreds of feet away. He is on his own now, balancing and peddling with the wind in his face, alone.

A photograph in sepia, now sixty years old, reveals the face of the father showing pride, and yet sadness with the knowledge that another step forward for the boy is another step away from him.

Right on schedule, the boys head for the vacant lot at the end of the street, carrying with them assorted gloves, two bats, one battered ball, and a ball that is still a little white, on a day that is hot, yet in memory clear and wonderful. Love of the game replaces talent with these boys, but it does not deter the complete giving of all they’ve got to the effort. Fly balls are dropped, throws are muffed, pitched balls are missed, but in their imagination they are the best darn baseball players in town.

The creased photograph, turned yellow now, was taken with a Kodak brownie camera. It shows a picture of boys in blue jeans with turned up cuffs, giving themselves completely to a game of skill where they had none, but isn’t that the way for most of us in life. Only the very few have a skill or talent to take them above the group and receive accolades and awards. For the rest of us, it’s all in the imagination.

We often wonder what draws certain people together, to form a friendship. That bond of understanding things about each other without having to make excuses or manufacture lies to justify why we do what we do. A person with whom talk is not always necessary. The boy from the street had the good fortune to have had a pal, a buddy of quiet temperament, with whom he was able to drop any pretensions and just be his own young, questioning self. Favorite pastimes of the boys were trading comic books, talking about their favorite baseball team, and discussing what was going on in the neighborhood. Small talk would be what we call it now, but it was of utmost importance in their world.

A photograph of the two boys with lop-sided grins on their faces is all that remains as evidence that the two were great buddies, confidants, and allies during those years. As they grew older, they grew apart because of differing interests, and their time together became less and less until they finally lost all contact. Not intentionally, but nevertheless, how could he have lost all contact with his buddy, his pal. How could a relationship that was so important to him once, not have a proper conclusion? Half a century later he doesn’t know if he is still living.

The boy, like all others, learned best by example. He learned lessons in kindness from a gruff war veteran who happened to be his neighbor. Fred was his name, but the grownups called him Fritz, so the boy, wanting to be grownup, called him that also. Fritz was a neighbor who showed the boy how even a little interest shown to a growing boy is the stuff that is never forgotten. Fritz had a wonderful, gentle, English bulldog who would stand between them and drool as Fritz marveled over the boy’s new ball glove, or volunteered to tighten his bicycle seat. He also happened to be the man who was first in the neighborhood to get a television set. He was a generous man and would invite anyone who would like, to drop in and take a look at this new marvel. The boy was one who took him up on it, and spent many hours looking at the snowy picture until his head felt like it was going to explode. That is, until the next da, when the headache would be gone and the lure of the magical box in Fritz’s living room would draw him in again. Fritz’s wife and two daughters accepted him as a temporary resident until his interest, which could not dwell on anything for too long, was drawn to other things.

No photograph remains of Fritz and his dog except in the boy’s memory, and that is bright and clear and kept safe, because the memory is the ultimate scrapbook for the snapshots of our lives. But the question we should ask of ourselves is do we ever wonder how important a few moments of time, a moment of connection to another might produce an impression that the person will carry with them forever

The street was a wonderful place for a boy to grow up on, in a time that now seems antiquated and oh so innocent. But it was a real street and these were some of the people who were his companions for a portion of his life’s journey. He hopes and prays that they all had good lives, and if their journeys have ended, an eternity of peace and love. If they have gone ahead of him, he adds this message to them, “please save a place for me in the line-up, but you have to know beforehand, I never got any better at playing the game. But what we had was just fine.”

2009-03-04T09:30:00.001-08:00

Two Candles

Two candles flicker in the wind

impervious to storm or gale

burning as one, bright and steady.

Intertwined, their combined flames can withstand

all of nature and man

I laugh, I smile, I tease, I question, I philosophize

I sympathize, I joke with this woman

As I have for so very long.

We have been sharing our thoughts, our discoveries

of life and love since we were children.

We have grown old together.

I am never happier than when we are alone,

Talking together about a past that still seems near and

A future together that knows no end.

I am still discovering, after nearly a half century together,

New depths of love for this woman who remains forever young in my eyes.

I cherish our conversation that started so long ago,

that continues and will until that unimaginable day when

as it must, a flame will sputter and a life will end.

How can two lives that live as one continue alone?

If I must stay behind, I pray to God the stay be brief,

For surely the sun will disappear from my being.

To comprehend the blackness of that day fills my soul with feelings

I cannot describe. That day when joy and purpose and completeness

Go out of my life, I will be so utterly alone.

But as it is in life, it goes on, and I will also, thanking God for allowing

Me the love and companionship of one of his chosen creations for such a

Long time, but not long enough, lest it was eternity.

Remembering our lifetime conversation will bring melancholy smiles to my

face knowing that the remaining candles flame is growing dim and will

soon sputter and on one glorious day will build to a glorious brilliance and go out.

On that wonderful day, the conversation will begin anew.

2009-03-04T09:29:00.001-08:00

WOULD OF, COULD OF, MIGHT OF DREAMS

By Jim Kittelberger

Have you fulfilled all the dreams you may have had when you laid down upon the warm grass and looked up into the sky? When reality still did not have a vote? When only feelings mattered? When anything was possible and there were no limitations? When fear of the future would not have been understood, and we were the hero of all our dreams?

For some of us, the dreams were over by the time we were in grammar school, when the haves and have-nots became visible and understood. For some the dreams were over when we understood our own limitations and we settled into our own comfort zone. But for some, the fortunate ones whose minds would not allow any limitations to be set, whose imaginations would not be smothered by doubts, who paid heed to their childhood dreams and as they grew into adulthood expanded them into possibilities, and finally into reality, I salute you because you are the surrogate for all of us who wished we could of, would of, might of, but didn’t.

2009-03-04T09:28:00.001-08:00

Whiffers
By Jim Kittelberger

There once was a boy with bright red hair named Zeke, who at one time, for a little while, lived in a little town in Florida, called Whiffers. Whiffers is a town populated completely with boys, little ones, big ones, skinny ones, fat ones, white ones, black ones, yellow ones, tall ones, short ones, but all with one common failing. They cannot hit a baseball. No matter how they try, no matter how many people try to teach them, no matter how many prayers they say, nothing helps. There are summer camps for camping and for space stuff and for swimming and for picking on girls and for telling spooky stories but this one is for the most important thing in the world to boys. It is for kids who always, always strikeout. Ohhhh Moannn, Strike Three, you're out. Oh No, those dreaded words. Boys would rather go to the dentist than strike out.
Zekes parents, Babe (named after Babe Ruth) and Babe (named after Babe Didrikson Zaharias) loved sports and loved Zeke. Well now, Babe and Babe would do anything to help him hit that ball, but their instructions could not help. They had his eyes checked, but his vision was 20/20. His coordination was good. He was athletic. He could play football. He ran track, he was very fast. He was known as the RED FLARE. He could play defensive baseball, he was a good fielder, but something happened when he picked up a bat and stood in the batters box. It went against all logic. He should be able to hit the ball, but he could not, EVER. He could not even hit foul balls.
He became depressed and stayed in his room most of the day. He felt ashamed.
A friend of Babe and Babe heard of the problem and came to talk about it. His name was Hack Atum. You might have heard of him. When he was playing, he went into a terrible hitting slump. He could not hit anything for the longest time. The manager was ready to send him to the minors, when he disappeared for two weeks. When he returned he became one of the best hitters in all baseball. Hacks story as he told it to Babe and Babe was that he had met this man and he had changed his life. If he could do it for him, he could do it for Zeke. The man started helping one boy and then more and more, until he finally started a camp, which grew into a small town. That town is now called Whiffers. If Babe and Babe and Zeke would like, he would talk to his old friend about Zekes problem.

Zeke was accepted and as Babe and Babe put him on the airplane, they all exchanged high fives, patted each others bottoms and spit on the ground. This is a traditional and mysterious baseball ritual and beyond civilian comprehension. They also gave him a supply of sunflower seeds to eat on the way there. This caused the flight attendants a little problem and they told Zeke to quit spitting seed shells all over their carpet.

When they landed at the airport near a town called Wilted, Florida, near the everglades, a man in a red, blue, yellow and green shirt met him. The shirt displayed a picture of a baseball being hit by a bat with a comet tail behind it as it flew upward. Below the picture were the words, "We Create Hitters". He also had on a red baseball cap. It had the same picture of the ball with a comet tail on its front. " Zeke, I'm Casey Bat. I am the owner, general manager, manager and team captain. In other words I am the BOSS. Hop in the jeep and let's get you started on becoming a hitter".

When they arrived at Whiffers, Zeke saw three ball fields. On field number one he saw boys hitting the ball very hard and far. On field number two, they were hitting, but not as hard or far, but they were hitting. Then they arrived at field number three. Mr. Bat said this is where we start the process, this is where you will start. It looked much like the other two fields, except home plate had no screen behind it. In fact the only thing behind home plate was the start of the everglades. It looked very dark and weird in there. The trees looked malformed and black. Swamp grass that was almost as tall as Zeke, and you can bet there are alligators in there too. Zeke looked at Mr. Bat like he was crazy. "But Mr. Bat, he said, I bet there are gators in there". Mr. Bat said. "Yeah Zeke, I'll bet you're right. Now, here is what we are going to do, I will pitch the balls to you. There will not be a catcher. If you miss the ball, you will have to retrieve it yourself". Zeke listened and then his face turned as red as his hair. "A gator might eat me if I go in there". Mr. Bat said, "Yeah, I bet it might, so you see how important it is to hit that ball, you do not want to go in the glades too many times, do you? We will start tomorrow morning bright and early".

That night, in the dormitory he shared with a few other guys, he was talking to his nearest roommate Tug Uppants from Georgia. "Did Mr. Bat explain to you about field three?" He asked with a worried look on his face. "Well, he shore did, but I'll be a Yankee in blue if ah believe em, Tug said as he juggled baseballs. Ah'm from Georgia, and we all have swamps too, and ah don't think he would do that to y'all or to any of us. But ah'm not really sure", he said as they settled down to an unsettling sleep.

The next morning, after a night filled with dreams of being lost in a deep, dark, wet forest, he awoke at Mr. Bats command to wake up and get to the chow hall and eat a good breakfast, because it might be a long day.

As he approached field three, his stomach was feeling sick. He thought for sure that he was going to get sick. Mr. Bat was waiting for him at home plate, as he slowly made his legs move him toward it. "Now Zeke, I want you to grab a bat and get up to the plate. Think only of the ball. Keep your eyes only on the ball. Concentrate on the ball". Yeah, Zeke thought, easy for him to say he doesn't have a gator staring at his rear end. Mr. Bat picked up a ball and wound up and let the ball fly. Zeke could not concentrate. He was thinking about missing the ball and the gators at his rear. The ball reached him and he swung a mighty swing, but no sound of the ball hitting the bat came and he heard the ball bouncing into the glades. OH NO. Surely Mr. Bat is not serious, he certainly will not make me go get the ball. As he looked toward the pitchers mound, all he could see was this arm that looked like a neon sign pointing toward the glades. "Go boy. You were not concentrating enough". With much fear, he turned toward the unknown and started walking toward the ball. He walked about five feet into the dark. He could not see it. He walked another five feet. No luck. There it is, I see it up ahead. He darts toward the ball, and as he is leaning over to pick it up, he hears the sound of cloth tearing, and a sting on his rear. Yikes! Oh my gosh, he is going to eat me. He thought for sure he was the gators breakfast. His feet started slipping in the wet grass. He wasn't moving. The gator was getting ready to take another bite. Then his feet started to move him and he flew out of there like a jet plane taking off. He made it. He fell to the ground gasping. Mr. Bat asked, "did you get the ball?" Zeke was so scared he really didn't know. He looked at his hand and thank the Lord, there it was. Mr. Bat took the ball, and checked to make sure he was all right. "You were lucky Zeke, I don't know if you will be so lucky next time." Oh surely he is not going to make me do that again. "BATTER UP", he yelled. Zeke did not know if he could do that again. For a moment he sat there and refused to get up. Then he thought of all the people that tried to help him and Babe and Babes love for him, and he started to get up. He was mad now, good and mad. He hated Mr. Bat, he hated this place and enough was enough.

He got up, dusted off his uniform, picked up a bat and went to the plate. Anger and resolve tore through his brain. You won't do that to me again, Mr. Bossy, Mr. Meany, Mr. Cruel. I am going to pretend that ball is you, and knock you out of the park. O.K. Mr. Bat, throw that ball to me one more time. He set himself in the batters box, set his feet at exactly the right positions, leaned over the plate and started to concentrate, concentrate, and concentrate. Mr. Bat wound up, and let the ball fly toward Zeke. At just the right moment Zeke swung his bat and the ball and bat met at just the perfect moment. CRACK! What a beautiful sound. The ball sailed out of the ball field and into field two. Zeke stood there watching, with a feeling of success and happiness and revenge toward Mr. Bat.

As they watched the ball fly into the next field, Mr. Bat turned toward Zeke again and walked toward him. Now what thought Zeke? When Mr. Bat got to home plate, he took Zeke into his arms and hugged him as hard as anyone ever did before or would again. "Zeke, he said, I hope when you are over being mad, you will remember this moment whenever you have to make a big hit, and know I am looking down at you smiling".

(C) copyright 2000 Jim Kittelberger. All Rights Reserved.

2009-03-04T09:26:00.002-08:00

WORD PHUN
BY Jim Kittelberger

When did the elusive verb saw, the past tense of see, go missing? I think it has been several years since I last saw it. In its place, the verb seen has taken over. Now seen is a perfectly good word, I like it, but it should know its place. It's been a few years since I was in school, but I was taught to conjugate verbs. It was standard instruction in grade schools in the forties and fifties. It went like this. I see. I saw. I have seen. Seen needed a helper, it is not one of those words that stand-alone. But today, now you listen, how many times do you hear, I seen it. That is not right.

Now the English language may not be as melodious as French, but it is the language used by the majority of the world, and as such, a little care should be taken to speak it properly. I have talked to some teachers about this corruption of the language and they are aware of it. Why then I ask, is it not being corrected? I think, perhaps, some of the younger teachers use the same bad English. If that is not so, why then do I read books that are supposed to be edited by educated people, being printed with incorrect English? I think maybe some editors don't know incorrect English when they see it.

Perhaps you are saying, so what. Who cares? I, for one. I cannot stand the corrupting of our language and it's substitution of mongrelized words. Slang is fun when we know it's slang, but I think more people than I care to guess, don't know the slang from the correct word.

I suppose it is more of the, in your face, if you don't like it, so what, attitudes of today. It is egalitarianism gone too far, when the young people aim down instead of up, in their use of the English language. The French love their language, we perhaps, should learn to love ours maybe just a little bit more.

Copyright Jim Kittelberger 2001. All Rights Reserved.

2009-03-04T09:26:00.001-08:00

WHEN I DAYDREAM

When I daydream,
I oft times dream in black and white.
Of sitting in a dining car on a speeding train,
smoking, and listening to the different conversations all around me.

Have you heard the latest Miller tune?
Jeepers, it's keen.

My son is in the Pacific somewhere,
I worry about him so.

Mrs. Roosevelt says in the Saturday Evening Post that many things will be different when this is all over.

Please marry me
I may not come back.

I used all my ration stamps
and bought a big steak.

Make sure you read part of my letters to the kids so they don't forget me.

Did you see the picture in Photoplay
of Gable in his uniform? He's so dreamy.

I hardly have enough gas to go anywhere,
darn war.

I understand there's no more sleeping space available, we'll just have to sit here and talk all night.

My dad got killed at Guadalcanal.
Gosh, I miss him.

Jim Kittelberger 2001. All Rights Reserved.

2009-03-04T09:24:00.003-08:00

A BAD CASE OF WRITER’S BLOCK

By Jim Kittelberger

“It was a dark and gloomy night and my brain is dead”.

**&^%%$##@#$%^^&&&***^%%$#

Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country and me

He pushed himself back from the typewriter, disgusted with the worst case of writers block he had ever had to endure. And to add to his misery, it must be ninety-five degrees in this squalid walkup apartment he called his office. His undershirt felt like it had absorbed ten pounds of sweat and smelled like it too.

From the always-on radio in the corner of the room came the sounds of the announcer proclaiming the benefits of Wild Root Crème Oil Charley. On it’s return swing, the rotary fan by the desk slightly ruffled the paper in the typewriter, but did not stay long enough to have any effect on his physical or mental misery.

As he got up from his desk, the spring of his wooden office chair groaned and snapped with the relieved burden of the slightly out of shape two hundred fifty pound ex-newspaper reporter.

“That’s all I need now, to have the damn chair break. Oh what makes the difference, I can’t write sitting, I might as well try it standing,” he said to himself as he realized he was talking out loud to an empty room. He headed for the small kitchen and a cool one. The refrigerator revealed a pan with the remains of a can of Campbell’s chicken noodle soup with the spoon still inside, a half empty pack of Camel cigarettes, a sign of his latest attempt to stop smoking, and two bottles of Blatz brew. He grabbed the cold brown bottle and held it to his forehead. The cold from the fridge and the bottle of Blatz momentarily relieving his momentum toward heat stroke, assuring him of a little more time to finish the great American novel.

He had returned unscathed and in the best shape of his life from Guadalcanal to his old job of reporter for the local rag. But after an unsuccessful adjustment to civilian life with all its rules and regulations along with unreasonable expectations that you must contribute something to your employers endeavor, he quit. He walked out after giving a grand speech about fighting for liberty and then coming home to find that his was being denied. It was really almost a teary eyed performance and was well received by other nine to fivers listening and taking in the whole show. He actually received some spattering of applause as he righteously exited into the world of the free.

He leaned against the wall in his Pullman kitchen taking a last swig of the quickly warming brew, and had to smile remembering that moment of liberation and promise. But the promise and the back military pay he received upon discharge were fast dwindling, thus adding to his current miseries of writers block, heat prostration, and a bad case of body odor. As if on cue, the radio announcer asked a rude question that would very probably guarantee a loss of friendship of any real live person, “Do you have B.O.? Then bathe daily with Lifebuoy.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” he said to the empty room, “I’m getting nothing accomplished at the typewriter, so I might as well hit the shower and maybe, just maybe, my mind will clear and I’ll get some words down on paper,” he said to the void, and nodding his head in agreement with himself headed for the bathroom and a clean start.

Laying his head back on the only chair worth sitting in, with his feet on the coffee table, he lit one of his formerly refrigerated Camels. He relished the clean refreshed feeling, but knew it would be short lived. The heat of the dying day was unrelenting and a breeze was non-existent. Oh, if it would only rain, that might help a little.

It rained a lot on the Canal, and it never helped a damn bit there. If anything, it just jacked the humidity up a few more notches. But that was a jungle. Oh no, he thought, I’m not going there. When I left there, I left there. Like most of the vets he met, there was little or no talk of the bad times. But they did talk of the good times, and there were some of those too. He remembered a time at Pearl with a good buddy of his. They had been invited to a private late-night luau that turned into a lulu of a luau. A smile started on his face, then, just as quickly it disappeared as he remembered that was just before the Canal and his buddy never came back.

He must have dozed because the radio woke him with the loud sound of the contents of Fibber McGee’s closet hitting the deck and McGee yelling again how he’ll have to get it cleaned out.

It occurred to him that in all the years working for the paper before and after the war, that he had never had a time when the words stopped for him. He loved working with words. Whether as a reporter, when he just had to get the right facts in the right order down on paper in a timely manner, or when his editor moved him to commentary and he had to try and make sense out of what was happening in the world, they came in a rush. But this time no words would come.

This was new to him, and he was more than a little frightened. It was not unlike a logjam at the mouth of a river when all the logs strive to flow freely at the same time. They’re all facing in different directions and just the opposite happens, none of them come through. This in essence, he believed was happening to him, the logjam of ideas were all trying to come out at the same time or, and this was the most frightening, there were no logs or ideas to begin with, in which case he shouldn’t be a writer at all.

He leaped to his feet and started pacing the floor. The inertia was making him depressed, and God knows he didn’t need to go there. He had read somewhere that some writers kept an apple in their desk because the smell made them think more clearly. He had no apples on hand, so that was no good.

He fell to the floor and began doing push-ups, ten, twenty, thirty. His muscles quivered, then his arms gave out, and he lay prostrate on the floor. Not only was his brain deserting him, he was also becoming a physical wreck. He used to be able to do a hundred of those damn things. Suddenly, the inertia felt good as he cradled his head in his arms and remained where he fell on the floor.

He thought back to when it felt good to lie on the floor reading his comic books, which were becoming more and more plentiful and the kids loved them. The coal furnace filled the house with its strangely comforting aroma as his mom sat in an overstuffed chair mending holes in old socks. There was no doubt that he had gotten his love of books and words from his mother. She was university trained in English and the humanities, and was teaching school until she married and had her son. His mother introduced him to Tom Sawyer, Moby Dick, and Treasure Island, and she taught him to understand and love poetry. She also taught him the power of words spoken and written correctly. When he went to the university he gravitated most naturally, it seemed to him, to journalism. He never regretted his decision except when payday arrived and he was always a day late and a dollar short, as the vernacular of the day went. But he hoped, in spite of the odds against it, that perhaps he had a book in him that someone would pay to read. If that happened, but money did not follow, maybe a measure of fame would, and give the words he might produce afterwards a measure of power. He had a smile on his face as he drifted off.

Every bone in his body hurt as he rolled over and started to awaken. He hated it when he fell asleep on the floor. There was just no give to wooden floors and, even though he had a little padding on his frame, it still felt like all his bones were fused together as he started to move first one arm, then the other, and finally his legs until all the pieces stopped hurting and he brought himself to a sitting position. The radio was playing the national anthem, so it must be midnight. His stomach also told him he had forgotten to feed it.

As he walked from the kitchen eating a peanut butter foldover, he stared at the silent typewriter with a look of betrayal on his face. He was being betrayed by a friend of these many years and he felt obliged to hear a reason for it. The typewriter sat there ignoring him. He took that as a personal affront, stuck his nose in the air, and turned his back on it.

A window without a screen opened onto the fire escape and provided a place for solitary thought and maybe even a stray breeze that might happen by. He picked up the last pear for dessert and climbed out. He sat with his back against the building and felt the residual heat still remaining from the hot day. As he had many times before, he glanced down at the passing world below him. It was after midnight and the traffic was light. Businesses were closing or had closed. A wife, I assume, was walking beside an inebriated man, her husband, I assume, and reading him the riot act for spending most of the weeks check in the saloon and for her having to come after him before he spent it all. Another couple was holding hands, seemingly oblivious to anyone else in the world as they walked along. They were enjoying love in its first blush, deep and belonging only to them. The sounds that carried his way were gentle and muted. Cars waited more patiently for traffic lights to change, then accelerated more slowly in step with the less hurried, more personal nightlife of the city. He had worked many all-nighters for the paper and the difference between the day people and the night people was quite evident to him. Night people were more talkative, less stressed, and more open, as if the velvet blackness of the night shielded them from the reality that the day people had to deal with. As a newspaperman, an interview with a night person was more candid as one person talking to another, conversing instead of make statements. Editors loved night people for personality pieces to fill the Sunday supplements. He liked them too.

He leaned his head back against the building, lit a cigarette and closed his eyes, taking in a deep lungful of smoke. When he opened his eyes, he was looking at a sky so clear, so black, it seemed he could reach out and touch a star. The moon was nearly full, and he could make out textures and shadings. It seemed so peaceful. His mind again tried to comprehend that the same moon he was gazing at from his fire escape, the friendly, beautiful, lovers moon, shining down so benevolently on the city, adding background for everything romantic, is the same exact moon that shined on steaming jungles full of men trying desperately to kill the other guy before he killed him. The same moon shines over people dying of disease or hunger, caring not a whit.

“Oh, to hell with that”, he said as he yanked himself back from analyzing the world condition to his immediate problem. “Maybe my mother was too diligent in her teachings. I seem too often to philosophize and get myself backed into a conundrum and a blasted enigma with no way to get out.”

He lay his head back, gazing up and willing that moon to answer his questions. He closed his eyes for just a moment and a slight breeze ruffled his hair. He remembered another time a breeze ruffled his hair, a bittersweet time of great happiness and great sadness. A time when the moon shone brightly for him until, in his stupidity, he shot it out of the sky. Yes, contrary to what most people thought, there was a time when love had a role in his life. Before the war he had met and fallen deeply in love with a fellow writer, but was unable to live two lives as most normal people seem to be able to do. When a story called, he answered. Until a day came when she, ah she was lovely, made him choose. Oh Lord, why couldn’t I have made some room for her. But he had made his choice for ill or good, and you have no other option but to live with your decisions, as he was every day of his life.

He glanced down at his watch; the luminescent green glow read four o’clock. His rear end was telling him to please relieve it of the burden of his weight for a spell. He obeyed and made his way back inside.

The radio station had signed off for the night and the radio was emitting a strange garbled noise as he rushed to turn it off. He strolled to his phonograph and started to select something that might fit his mood. A mood that would reflect his blasted empty head, he thought as he gave a silent growl. He stacked a few on the changer and flipped the switch. As he sat and laid his head back, he noticed a fly walking on the ceiling. It was not any special fly but just the normal black housefly. It seemed quite big though. He wondered if it was that large because it had survived many missed flyswatters, or was that just the average size of his, his, and what the heck word do I want? his breed? If he had gotten this big, he must he rather intelligent or has splendid eyesight and reflexes. Look at him; I think he’s looking down at me right now. I think we’re having a staring contest. I wonder how long these do-nothing insects live, providing they are able to dodge the before mentioned perils? All of a sudden he flew from his ceiling perch to land on the remains of my dessert pear. My first instinct was to shoo him away, but on further thought, it seemed we had made some kind of connection, some kind of understanding. Perhaps we were the first members of the human/bug alliance. So, in accordance with our new understanding I sat and watched him enjoy himself. Ah, peace, understanding, and co-existence on earth, is there anything better? As he watched the fly eat, his eyelids became heavy and he slept.

2009-03-04T09:24:00.001-08:00

SERENE ETERNITY

A SPIRITUAL FANTASY

By Jim Kittelberger

The breeze gently nudges the low hanging leaves hovering over this peaceful place and touches his face like a caress, just tantalizing his nose with its freshness, lingering for a few welcome moments like a teasing vixen before darting away. Perhaps just perhaps, leaving a whispered admonition to enjoy her before she cedes her domain to the lustier season of fall.

One leaf, less robust, less clinging, releases its grip on its summer bough and slowly falls, floating back and forth, seemingly suspended, brushing the marker on its downward spiral before finally coming to rest at its base. Late summer sun glinting through the high branches splashing its light in random arrays, lightly touches the leaf in final farewell.

The man kneels and casually lifts the leaf in his hand, a spontaneous gesture bypassing any reasoning on his part. As he gently holds the leaf, his eyes turn to the aged, weather worn, stone whose countenance has turned from white stone to gray and finally black. The etching is becoming harder to read and he has to look closely. This was the final resting place of a young woman, aged fifteen when she died over a century ago. Lives cut short or ended in infancy were to the man the saddest of all. Not to have had the time to sort it all out, to discover all that life has to offer, both in happiness and sadness. The man in his seventieth year, not young and spry anymore and concerned about his approaching death, began to stiffen in his kneeling position and being completely alone in this place decided to sit down in the warm, sweet-smelling grass and rest his back against the marker for just a few moments.

He sat and allowed his eyes to behold the beauty and serenity of this place and in time he seemed to become as one with the many shades of green upon which he sat. As his senses became more acute to his surroundings, he realized where at first he thought he was alone, he in fact was not, as butterflies of many beautiful colors flew in their round about directions delighting him as they drew close and promised to land upon him, but then drew away. Not only was he not alone, he realized he was being serenaded by the symphony of nature, the birds. Robins, wrens, finches, and cardinals, all contributed to sing music that only God could compose. The rays of the sun that wandered in and out through the leaves overhead seemed to wink at him as if to reassure him that he is never alone, never. His eyes were seeing things he had never seen before as his mind expanded with happiness. The gentle breeze again returned to bath him in the natural fragrance of nature and his mind exploded with excitement. It’s you, isn’t it, he spoke aloud. Yes, the breeze whispered, it is I to bring you reassurance that we never die, not really. Our souls lie not in the ground, but are a part of the living world. We are the wind, sun and the stars. We sleep in the clouds and fly with the eagles. And by his grace, look into the face of eternity and see peace and love stretching forever with your loved ones by your side. The breeze stopped and the man’s face relaxed and an expression of serenity appeared and his eyes reflected his newfound peace. He knew he had been blessed by the knowledge he had been given and would to his last breath share it with all who would listen.

2009-03-04T09:23:00.001-08:00

THE BUTTERFLY

(the flight of the eastern tiger swallowtail)

By Jim Kittelberger

It slews, it yaws, it sideslips

It meanders

In a less than straight

Path to the nectar

While

It’s beauty, it’s grace,

It’s vulnerability

Flies

Straight to my heart.

2009-03-04T09:22:00.001-08:00

THE HUMMER AND THE HORSE

A family tale

By Jim Kittelberger

Evolution once did

Err, one to water,

One to air.

The hummingbird and seahorse

were once brothers, I think,

Well, isn’t it obvious,

Oh yes, of course.

Brothers no more

One up a tree, one in the sea

Makes it twice as

Amusing for you and me.

Ya see?

I see.

2009-03-04T09:21:00.001-08:00

In Life

Psychology 101: Old guy compares life after retirement to childhood. As Lucy said in Peanuts, the doctor is in. This diagnosis bears about as much credibility as Lucy’s, but her diagnosis cost a nickel as I recall, and at least this one is free.

In life, hopefully we are granted a long span of years. I am sixty-seven now, and in reasonably good health, so unless some nasty disease has my name on it unbeknownst to me, I may be able to count on maybe another fifteen years or until my eighties. That is if heredity counts, as my parents both made it into their eighties. So with the fall weather approaching and melancholia blowing in the air along with the leaves, I have become philosophical about it all, life up to now that is. I have come up with this conclusion. It occurs to me that childhood up until middle teens, and old age after retirement is linked in this one marvelous way. Parallel frames of mind it seems to me existed within me fifty some years ago and now in the next century. I feel a connection with that boy’s feelings then as I do with the old guy he has become. With a waiver from argument that the childhood we are comparing is one which was not one of those, ‘when I grew up on the east side of New York’, kind of childhoods, but a normal not too traumatic regular kind that most of us were lucky enough to have been granted; and an equal length of years in retirement. As I recall, and I will presume to speak for all of us, it’s my ink; my childhood while not idyllic was certainly close enough to what I think idyllic means. My parents came out of the depression so money was not plentiful, but there must have been enough or my parents hid their distress from me very well. My frame of mind then, as best I can recall, give me a little latitude please, was one of contentment with no thoughts of having to make decisions which unbeknownst to me were lurking just around the corner. But I couldn’t see around corners and was content and happy living in the world as it was presented to me, either the real world or the world my parents made for me, either way I was happy. This parallels exactly the feelings I have had from retirement to the present day. I am content, happy, worry free, and angst free. I again refuse to look too far around that corner. I am not an idiot, I know around that corner I don’t want to look around is aging and all it’s possible horrendous possibilities. Those possibilities, or course are illness and since we not figured out anyway of dodging it, death. But being an adult and having a reasonably usable brain I have developed a faith that is my own private faith that even then I will enter another parallel existence of contentment and happiness.

2009-03-04T09:20:00.001-08:00

I’VE BEEN MILE-STONED

By Jim Kittelberger

I’ve been mile-stoned. If you live long enough, you also will be mile-stoned in the middle of the sixth decade of your life. It sounds like the horrible, I hope, antiquated practice of throwing stones at a person until they are dead or yelling a lot. And maybe in some cases it feels like that to some people. Milestone, the noun means loosely, that you have reached some age in your existence that is worthy of note. The verbs meaning, which I am completely fabricating, is that each year in the guise of a stone is being thrown at your aged body causing you to at least pay attention to this particular birthday.

Is it an honor or perhaps a reminder to take stock of what has gone before and wonder what’s ahead? In my case, I have been lucky and have had good people around me all my life. Family when you are very young is that group that is always criticizing and telling you what to do, but at the other end of life, is a wonderful warm non-criticizing accepting place, if you are lucky enough to have a good one, which I have.

I suppose also that when you reach a milestone you are expected to expound some words of wisdom and advice. Yeah right! I have lived three score and five years, but does that mean I have any answers? I don’t think so. What I have learned is patience and I have acquired a comfortable awareness and acceptance of a spiritual world. But that is not something you can teach. It is all around us and hopefully all will see and feel it sometime in the fullness of time. Contrary to what makes good novels, I had a happy childhood with memories that never fail to make me smile in moments of reflection. I have had the good fortune to meet some good people along the way who sometimes went out of their way to make my way easier with their kindness. I remember them often and hope that when I do another blessing is bestowed on them in the great beyond. I have been blessed with three wonderful children who don’t really know how much I adore them, but I do. But the most important blessing I have had bestowed on me is my helper, my advisor, my companion, my most adored one, without whom I don’t know what ill-advised road I may have traveled, my lifelong friend, my wife.

So what advice or answers have I accumulated over these years?

Reject narrow-mindedness, hard to do, but the light that is able to shine in when the mind is opened wide will illuminate your soul.

Don’t make snap judgments of other people, because as the old, old saying goes, until you walk in another’s shoes….

And finally, be kind to people, as hard as that may be sometimes.

2009-03-04T09:19:00.001-08:00

I’VE FALLEN IN LOVE AGAIN

By Jim Kittelberger

Written for and dedicated to my long suffering wife of so many years

With pure love and devotion.

I was so very young when I chanced to see

A lovely image pass by me

I felt something stir within, and perhaps, just perhaps,

I knew.

But I could never know that we were destined

To spend a lifetime together,

And that I would fall in love with her then, and again

And again.

Experiencing young love, hot and intense,

Free of reason or any pretense. Lust is

King and rules the game, and the lovers

Ardently embrace that flame.

Middle age love is the most difficult of times, when

Ambition and selfishness oft times make us forget

And abuse our most truly precious possession,

Each others love.

Wisdom and perseverance must be heeded,

For first love is truly blest, and if nurtured will stand the test.

Those who navigate those difficult moments will emerge

At the end a much wiser person, intact,

With their loved one still by their side.

And then as the years unfold, the numbers that began at two

And multiplied to three, four, or more, begins its inexorable

Natural subtraction until there are but two, as it all began.

And if you are as lucky as I, then when that time arrives,

You will discover young love all over again, enhanced

By the knowledge that the person who shares your bed

Each night is the most valuable person in your life

Your lifelong companion, your life’s delight.

Now I have discovered once more, after almost two

Score and ten, I have fallen in love all over again, as sappy and silly as I have so many times before, with this woman that I adore.

2009-03-04T09:18:00.000-08:00

PLEASE SMILE AGAIN.

By Jim Kittelberger

Our lives change; people that we love suddenly are gone.

It hurts, it causes us pain, and we don't want to let them go.

But if it happens that their time on earth is done, we must know

that they have finished the course a little ahead of us, and we

will surely see them again when our afternoon in the sun is over.

We must remember that life is but a collection of moments and snapshots and

the only permanent connection we have is that love

we keep inside that warms and soothes when loneliness looms.

So please don't despair my lovely one, as we have yet many more

moments together before our afternoon sun starts to fade. Smile and laugh and be at peace

because no one you truly love ever leaves forever, they are just around the bend, out of sight for

the moment, waiting for you to catch up.

2009-03-04T05:40:00.000-08:00

LONG DISTANCE

By Jim Kittelberger

I’ve had this urge; I guess you’d call it that, to dial the old telephone number of my deceased parents. I’ve had the thought cross my mind several times, until it started to become a fixation. Now I know that the number has either been sent to wherever they send old, no longer used telephone numbers, perhaps the dead number office, sorry bad joke, or it has been reassigned. At first I gave it not a seconds thought, and filed it away in ‘thoughts that fly through you mind that are stupid, and forget about it’.

Several years passed, and when the urge struck me again, I mentioned it to my wife. That was probably not a smart thing to do. She gave me her ‘how stupid are you really’ look. But this has happened now maybe six times. I think a half dozen times is enough for me to just say, “what the hell”, and pick up the phone and get it over with. I know I’ll get a recording saying this is not a working number, or I’ll be intruding momentarily into the life of whoever got the reassigned number. But I’ve decided I’m going to do it. This will probably entitle me to one costly session with a shrink, if I tell anyone, which I won’t ever again. But as I’m getting older, I’ve reached that stage of life where I don’t put things off too long, the years are piling up and it could become a mute point. Also, I have stewed over this thing long enough and it will soon be filed under ‘obsession’, and I don’t need any of those. Now is the time, go for it I told myself. I picked up the phone and started to dial. I got to the last two digits and it occurred to me, ‘how crazy is this?’ and slammed down the receiver.

I awoke very early the next morning after a very restless sleep. I usually sleep much later, so when I do wake this early it usually does not bode well for me; it usually means I’m getting ill, but as I lay there staring at the ceiling a nagging thought started hammering away at me once again. Call you mother; Call your mother. Holy Mary, mother of God, will this never cease. “It’ll stop right now”, I said to myself, as I picked up the receiver and dialed in the old number. It rang five times, and I said to myself, see you dumb cluck, nothing there but an unassigned number or I’m going to wake up some mighty angry phone customer wanting to know why some ignorant person is calling at this hour of the morning. Well nobody was answering, that ought to be enough to satisfy my creepy urge. Just as I was preparing to replace the receiver, I heard the phone being picked up and a voice said “Hello”. It was my mother’s voice as only she could say that word. I slammed the receiver down. Cold sweat broke out all over my body and I became panic stricken. This was off the scale in human weirdness and I was in a semi state of shock. I quickly got out of the bed and walked to the bathroom, turning on lights as I went. Darkness did not seem like a friend right now and I didn’t want any dark corners. I turned on the cold water and let it run until it was as cold as I could stand it, filling my cupped hands, and splashing my face over and over until I was absolutely awake, and my hands were too frigid to continue. As I toweled my face dry, I calmed down and sanity started to return. I must have been having a nightmare or I read somewhere that if you say something over and over you will eventually convince yourself it’s true. That’s probably it. I sat on the edge of the tub until all remnants of the dream disappeared, then dragged myself back to the bed and fell immediately into an exhausted sleep.

The following morning I awoke before the sun. The walls danced with shadows from the full moon that filled the winter sky. Since I was not inclined to immediately get out of bed, I studied the changing shapes as my imagination ran wild with the possibilities. The mind of a human has amazing faculties. We are able to metaphysically remove ourselves from place to place and situation to situation. Perhaps as a child our imaginations are the strongest as we contemplate a future we really know nothing about. Later, in our journey through life, when we think we know everything there is to know and nothing can surprise us again, the imaginings take on a more prejudiced point of view. If I had a million dollars, I would do such and such; or if I lived in Santa Barbara, California instead of here in Ames, Iowa, I would have everything I’d need to live a happy life. Imaginings are fun, and I was enjoying my few moments this early morning imagining what each shadow meant. Then it struck me; I was more at peace this morning than I have been in a long time. What happened to my fear of the night before?

In fact, I knew why the fear was gone, I knew with certainty that I had been given a gift, the substance of which I might never be able to discuss fully with anyone; but a gift of heavenly proportions that I would humbly accept. Without a moment’s hesitation, I went to the telephone and with shaking fingers dialed in the number. As before the voice answered with the readily identifiable Hello. In what is probably the most gratuitous statement I have ever made, I said, “Hi mom, this is your son.” Then there was a moment of silence and stillness, and the world for me seemed to switch into suspended animation. Then came the only two words she would speak, but to me it was the answer to all my prayers. “I’m happy.”

Was what happened to me imagination or reality? Would anyone believe me? Is it necessary for anyone to believe me? Would I ask anyone to believe it? I only know that when you are confronted with those ugly dark moments of your life when you are confronted with your mortality or someone who is so close to you that you feel their pain and anguish, and there is no answer on this earth; then it is time to go beyond what you can see, beyond reality. It’s time to have faith that the answer is very near, and is yours for the asking. I got my answer.

2009-03-04T05:38:00.000-08:00

PRETENSE, STRESS, AND A QUESTION OF FREEDOMS

By Jim Kittelberger

While driving down a city street recently, I was struck by a scene that seemed reminiscent to me of a scene one of those famous Italian directors would put on film. On the sidewalk, oblivious to one another, three young ladies walked single file, each in their own world, with a cell phone glued to their respective ears. It was certainly not an unusual sight these days, certainly not in the USA. What struck me as odd about the tableau? Why did I feel a tinge of anger, or maybe disgust? Was anyone of them checking with their baby sitter, or their parents’ health or perhaps even a stockbroker, or some other important person who has timely information or responsibility for important aspects of ones life? Honest, and responsible behavior if that would be the case, but in most cases I doubt it. Regardless, if that were the case, then the cell phones worth, and it is a most valuable tool, would be validated. But the cynic in me believes otherwise. It’s that otherwise that gives me unease about our national mental health.

There seems to be a national aversion to solitary thought, to moments of quiet, to moments of introspection. Indeed a stigma seems attached to any practice of the before mentioned. Society, or at least teen-age society, takes a jaundiced view of a person sitting alone for more than a few minutes without some appendage attached to the ear, signifying a connection to someone or something, and validating them as not some out-of-the-norm person. Teen-agers I can justify giving some slack in these, my own jaundiced views, because they need no accreditation from an older person to know they’re right, indeed they get accreditation just by being criticized by an older person, parent, school teacher, or any other figure of authority. But adults that behave in much the same manner are much more complicated to understand.

Adults have taken to cell phones like bees to honey, they do love them and with justification. They are ideal for business people of all kinds. Appointments can be made and/or confirmed on the run. Those dead hours traveling can now be put to good business use. Travel plans, home plans, all at your fingertips by just punching in some numbers. You are free from having to find a phone and digging for quarters to put in the slot. Your boss is able to keep in touch with you at any time, day or night. Your boss is able to interrupt your lunch, dinner, break-time, anytime. Your boss is able to barge in electronically when you are at home, in the bathroom, in bed. Wonderful right? No, it isn’t. It’s one of these modern marvels that have all kinds of trap doors affixed to it.

There was a time when we gave one-third of the day to our employers and the other two thirds was ours. This is no longer the norm. There aren’t business hours now, they’re all business hours and you are on duty 24/7. You no longer work a forty-hour week or sixty, but 168 hours a week, every hour every day. It may not say that in any contract, but believe it; you are now on the hook 24/7 or 168 hours.

What hours can you call free hours belonging only to you? Pass the Rolaids please, stress has moved in.

The communication tools now available to us are on one hand fantastic, and on the other intrusive. Americans have a birthright of freedom above all, and the invention of the cell phone and GPS while magnificent in their purpose, must be handled with care. Americans must learn of the inroads to their individual freedom these devises uncontrolled will surely travel. A little personal taking back of your privacy is called for, if not now, surely soon.

2009-03-04T05:36:00.000-08:00

PROFESSOR KNOWITALL'S MAGNIFICIENT? INVENTION
By Jim Kittelberger

Professor Knowitall was working very hard in his laboratory.
He had been very impressed by a speech he had heard recently.
The speech was about shortages all over the world and what we could do about it. Well, since Professor Knowitall was an expert in rubber plants, he could make sure that all the children in the world would have a ball to play with.

He had all his test tubes filled with different colored fluids. He had a small flame under each one and they were boiling and sputtering and red and green and blue and yellow and pink and a beautiful shade of aquamarine fluid were jumping out of the tubes.

The professor was busy at his desk figuring and re-figuring all his formulas. This would be experiment number eight hundred and fifty two. So far all the experiments had not worked. One of the experiments was pretty close though. It turned the rubber into cement. But cement balls do not bounce very well and were a little heavy to throw back and forth.

Well the moment was at hand; experiment number eight hundred and fifty two was ready to try. The liquid cooled and he shaped it into a ball. It was a beautiful ball, with red, green, blue, yellow, pink and a beautiful shade of aquamarine stripes running all around the ball. Well he was ready to try. He held his breath and gave the ball a hard bounce. Hurrah, Hurrah, it worked. Professor Knowitall had perfected his newest invention, rubber that would divide itself into a perfect copy of the original. After he bounced the ball, he now had two balls exactly the same.

The professor quickly went to work making different kinds of balls for the entire world to see his great discovery. He quickly made some basketballs and took them to the school gym and explained to the coaches how they could save lots of money by buying just one of his balls. They said they would try it. So that night they used one of the professors' new balls. The referee gave the ball to the player and said he didn't see anything different about the ball, and it felt the same.

The game started and the first boy to get the ball started bouncing the ball and it did just like it was supposed to do. It divided into another exact copy of the original ball. Now Professor Knowitall was a great inventor, but he had just one problem with his inventions. He was not very good at looking into the future; he just knew it did what he wanted. It made another exact copy, but he didn't think any further. It not only made one copy; it kept making copies after each bounce. The player bounced the ball and it made another and another player thought that was the game ball and he grabbed it and starting bouncing and that ball started making copies. Well you can see what happened. Soon the whole gym was loaded with basketballs. They covered the floor and soon they were starting to find their way out of the gym into the halls of the school. The kids in the halls picked up a ball and started bouncing it and more balls were made. The school quickly became filled with basketballs and someone opened an outside door and the balls started rolling down the sidewalks. The kids outside picked up a ball and started bouncing it and more balls were created.

Finally the police were called to help stop the balls from taking over the city. They came with all the sirens and flashing lights on, but as soon as they got close the police cars were covered over by the basketballs.

The police were overwhelmed, so they called the Army, and they came with all their tanks, and trucks, and jeeps, and bazookas, and cannons, and hand grenades, and flame throwers. One of the soldiers panicked and threw a hand grenade into the growing mass of balls, but that created more balls. The army finally hid behind trees and buildings and didn't know what to do. They said, "Let the Air Force do it."

The Air Force had the same problem. The more they bombed and strafed the more balls were created. They said, "Let Clint Eastwood do it." Clint looked at the balls with a sneer and yelled at the top of his voice so all could hear. "Balls, you will stop and go away or you will make my day." They didn't, so he took out his 357 magnum and shot the balls. Well you know what happened. Clint turned and ran back to Hollywood. As he was running away, he looked back over his shoulder and said, "The only one who can help you now is Superman."

Superman came and studied and studied the problem. Finally he came up with an answer. He gathered together a huge amount of string and leaped into the sky and flew around and around the balls at super sonic speed, building a net that would hold all the balls. When he was finished, using all his super strength, he leaped once again into the air dragging the mammoth size net with all the balls behind him. He flew into outer space until he was beyond the pull of gravity. There he released all the balls.

Now everyday in Professor Knowitalls city, at 1:58 p.m. all the residents smile when they look up at the red, green, blue, yellow, pink and a beautiful shade of aquamarine stripes planet as it bounces back and forth in the sky, knowing they are once again safe.

But, in a dark corner of the gym sits a little red, green, blue, yellow, pink and a beautiful shade of aquamarine stripped ball that had been overlooked, just waiting for a little boy or girl to pick it up and start bouncing it. Didn’t you just know that would happen?

2009-03-04T05:34:00.002-08:00

RAIN

Rain, rain and more rain
a week of rain.
Will it stop today?

Through winters snows and ice
I waited
knowing that the sun would free me.

Not yet.

2001 Jim Kittelberger.

2009-03-04T05:34:00.001-08:00

RETIREMENT PLANS

Do I have to plan my retirement? Do I have enough money set aside so I can do all the fun things the brokers and investment people say are just waiting for me if I plan properly?

There will be travel to exotic places, beaches to lie on in the warm sun, blank canvases to fill up with paint as I take up new hobbies, sailing in the boat I have always wanted, but just didnt have the time.

Oh for crying out loud, get real. I never had the money to do most of those things when I was in my peak earning periods. How the devil would I get enough money to invest in all those joys waiting me in retirement?

Of course, like most of the retirees today, I didnt have my plan exactly up to date. I got as far as knowing when I wouldnt have to go back to that lousy job Ive had for the last twenty-five, or thirty, or forty years. That was the extent of the retirement plan. But like most of my fellow retirees, (this is taken from my absolutely made up poll) I get by.

For the first year I felt like a kid skipping school, and getting away with it. Fantastic feeling. Then I finally understood that I could do full time what I had been doing on the sly for all those years, not much. I think most of us, (remember this is the completely bogus poll) dont do too many exciting things in our lives. I wouldnt know how to sail a boat anyway and I like to look at paintings, but do one myself? Get outta here.

So I will do what I want to do for the near and most likely the far future. Like most of us, I will watch the television, read a few more books, really have time to appreciate my spouse, if youre lucky to have a really good one like I do, play a little bit with our grandchildren,involve myself in social protest movements. My current protest is a silent
protest against wearing ties. I promised myself I would never put one on again and I am keeping that promise.
What? Did I hear you say what an empty life, or was that GET A LIFE? My friend, this is my life. I have worked my required forty years or so and raised three children and still have the same wife. I never did all the things I planned for in retirement and I probably never will. But I am happy being a semi couch potato that does not have to punch a clock anymore, along with, I bet, the majority of other retirees.
(According again to my scientific polls that is.)

By Jim Kittelberger
The man who did all the research for this article. Someone had to.

2009-03-04T05:32:00.001-08:00

HOMETOWN
By Jim Kittelberger

"As soon as I'm old enough, I'm gonna blow this hick town." Sound familiar? As young adults, depending upon the scope of our dreams, we are proud of our birthplace or it hangs around our necks like the proverbial albatross. It is big enough to provide all that we desire in life, or we can't wait to break free at the first opportunity. It is friendly and open or it is suffocating and oppressive. It is nurturing or it is cold. It's possibly all of these or none of these. But for young adults, ready and anxious to try their wings, to chase their destinies, it is usually something they wish to escape from. It does not take a shrink to figure out the motivation for this, it's an attempt to establish identities, without the baggage or help of family names or connections. It's so normal. It could also be that we have no idea what we want to do, and we would rather flounder or flourish somewhere other than under our families' protection or criticism. I, for some, or none of these reasons, left my hometown and stayed apart for seventeen years. Now I am not going to say I set the world afire, but I proved to myself that I could compete and advance in that world away from my roots, as most of us do. But it never goes away, it may for periods of time be free of your thoughts, but then you will see something, read something, smell something even, that will remind you of your ancestral home, that place you could not get away from quickly enough.

A hometown, no, my hometown as it is said with a proprietary air, is a place storied in literature and movies as that one certain place that is familiar, unpressured, and welcoming. That place that knew you when. That place where someone knew your parents, your grandparents, connections that somehow validate your existence. That place where you were born and as you age that place above all others where it seems appropriate that you will die. In my case, it seems very likely that I will die in the same hospital where I was born, and instead of being a thought that makes you shiver, it seems right, appropriate, just the way it should be. A hometown accepts you when you enter the world, and will mark your passage when you leave, and someone will know that you have been here. What more can we expect?

2009-03-04T05:31:00.001-08:00

Fathers, Sons and Grandsons
By Jim Kittelberger

If only, when I was young
I could have shown the love
I felt, as easily as I can now.

But some of us store our feelings
Deep down inside.
Then only too late do we understand,
The selfishness of such an act.

It seems especially important for a boy
To hear the words, "I love you", from a father,
And much more likely he won't.

It's so few words to say and seems so easy.
"Yeah, right."
The voyage of feelings from heart to mouth
Is a difficult journey for men to take,
But if you are lucky, life will give you another chance.

The sons of my son fill me with love.
I talk to them, I listen to them, I play with them,
I squeeze them and they respond with love right
Back at you.

I savor it, I feel free and open with my love for them,
But each time, I feel a pang of guilt.
I felt the same love for my sons, so why couldn't I show it?

The journey from heart to mouth for my grown sons is not as long
A journey as mine was.
Their mother probably taught them that.
As for me, I tell all fathers who have the same
Problem I had, "What the heck are you waiting for? Your
Sons want to hear it and you want to say it.

It's a journey you will be so glad you took.

2009-03-04T05:30:00.001-08:00

I THOUGHT ABOUT DEATH TODAY.
By Jim Kittelberger

I thought about death today,
Of sadness and leavings.
I hate leavings, always have.

If your life has been touched
With love, then how could it be otherwise.
A life of happiness is like beautiful music,
You wish to enjoy it forever.

Life is a gift of immeasurable treasures,
That I will surely hold on to with all my strength,
Until my fingers too weak for the effort,
are placed in that benevolent hand that
Will lead me to that place of gathering.

The miracle of what is to be will heal all wounds
And sadness, to be replaced one day by that
Wonderful moment of reunion when all
The love of earth will once again surround me.

Knowing this, as rock hard truth wrapped in
Heavenly faith comforts me now, and when the
Moment of leaving arrives will without doubt
Provide to the most loved of my loves an island
Of peace and promise.

Jim Kittelberger 2001. All Rights Reserved.

2009-03-04T05:29:00.003-08:00

Endless Conversation

By Jim Kittelberger
Dedicated to my wife Hazel, who is still here and healthy.

Two candles flicker in the wind
impervious to storm or gale
burning as one, bright and steady.
Intertwined, their combined flames withstanding
all of nature and man

I laugh, I smile, I tease, I question, I philosophize
I sympathize, I joke with this woman
As I have for so very long.
We have been sharing our thoughts, our discoveries
of life and love since we were children.
We have grown old together.

I am never happier than when we are alone,
Talking together about a past that still seems near and
A future together that knows no end.

I am still discovering, after nearly a half century together,
New depths of love for this woman who remains forever young in my eyes.

I cherish our conversation that started so long ago,
that continues and will until that unimaginable day when
as it must, a flame will sputter and a life will end.

How can two lives that live as one continue alone?
If I must stay behind, I pray to God the stay be brief,
For surely the sun will disappear from my being.

To comprehend the blackness of that day fills my soul with feelings
I cannot describe. That day when joy and purpose and completeness
Go out of my life, I will be so utterly alone.

But as it is in life, it goes on, and I will also, thanking God for allowing
Me the love and companionship of one of his chosen creations for such a
Long time, but not long enough, lest it was eternity.

Remembering our lifetime conversation will bring melancholy smiles to my
face knowing that the remaining candle's flame is growing dim and will
soon sputter and on one glorious day will build to a glorious brilliance and go out.
On that wonderful day, the conversation will begin anew.

(C) Jim Kittelberger 2002. All rights reserved.

2009-03-04T05:29:00.001-08:00

GRANDMOTHERS

An essay

By Jim Kittelberger

I was blessed with two grandmothers who defined what grandmothers are. One was of ‘English’ heritage and the other German. Two different types you could not invent. Circumstances had a lot to do with it, my English grandmother whose name was Anna was a tall straight woman who in her entire life never had an excess ounce of weight on her frame. When I saw pictures of the tall spare women who left their homes in Oklahoma during the depression and headed for California, who looked like all hope had gone out of their lives, I was always reminded of my dear sweet Grandma Anna. Her life I fear was not happy. She was involved in a dysfunctional marriage before the term was even invented. Consequently it was only Grandma Anna and no Grandpa. She had very few worldly goods and, of course, nothing to give to a little grandson except her quiet love. She gave that in abundance and I remember her fondly.

The complete opposite to my English grandmother was my German grandmother whose name was Barbara, who ran a home filled with people, good food, lots of hugs and a Grandpa who was a typical German immigrant, a big man who sat in his chair and smiled at me but didn’t waste too many words on me. Grandma, a short stout woman who looked strange whenever I would see her without her apron on, cooked, baked, and raised three girls and a boy in a house with two bedrooms and a toilet in the basement and washtubs for baths. It was a home always filled with the good smells of fresh chickens being cooked and strudels, kipfels and other delicacies being baked. She handled a knife with the adroitness of a magician, slicing through dough for homemade noodles and then swinging it around to illustrate a point in a conversation. I loved being around her, and even as a child I knew the significance of her habit of squeezing my face and calling me butchalee. A term with no meaning in the English or German dictionary, but I knew without doubt that it signified love.

Now, I am married to a Grandmother. She, like all women, one day without fanfare, or realization of time gone by, find they are suddenly grandmothers. They almost seem to have been implanted with a grandmother-chip, they start doing things that their mothers did when they became grandmothers. Whenever the grandchildren show up at our house, she cannot let them go home without a bag of leftover food, or candy, fruit, or whatever. As the kids are starting to go out the door, she will be flitting here and there depositing things in that bag. It’s a tradition, or maybe just a thing that grandma’s do. A word for all grandmothers or prospective grandmothers, keep up the good work because the little kids will remember forever. Look at me, I’m ancient and I still remember my grandmothers with love, and a smile.

2009-03-04T05:28:00.001-08:00

Hazel

Hazel, haz, hazy, hay-zee, however you rearrange the name it sounds absolutely right.

The name can sound formal or soft, serious or playful. The lady who sports this name

can be very English and proper, or at times very charmingly improper. She would never

be as frivolous as a Buffy or a Mimsy, but rather someone to be taken seriously. She

would be right at home in the Kings court as a maiden much sought after, or as a

consort of the royalty. Her bearing proud, yet demure at those moments when she knows

she has captured the eye of an admirer. To look upon her countenance is to open your

heart to all that is beautiful in this world, of which she would discount as of no value. Yet

more beautiful is her soul. Could it be opened to view it would reveal an innocence of

any outward personal beauty while revealing an innate kindness toward all of life's creatures.

To be named Hazel is to be the recipient of a name most noble, but to be the Hazel I know

is to be the one who has taken my heart and being to her bosom in spite of all my human

frailties and weaknesses until that time it beats no more. A woman named Hazel, my friend,

my love, my lifelong companion.

2009-03-04T05:27:00.001-08:00

AUGUSTUS AND WINSTON

CONVERSATIONS:

THE INTRODUCTIONS

By Jim Kittelberger

A Surreal conversation takes place between two unlikely participants.

The man, Augustus Robert Clary has grown old, and tired. The world outside this room no longer matters to him. His strength has been failing, so just turning on his side unassisted is an accomplishment of which he feels considerable pride. He peers through rheumy, nearsighted eyes at the stack of books sitting on his bedside table, and manages a smile as if again seeing old friends. They remind him of a time when he wasn’t riddled with sickness, one damn thing after another. Life is wonderful, he thought, and his had been, but the end sometimes can be hard when your strength has gone and turning from side to side becomes almost impossible. Your once vibrant body diminished to the degree that death is welcomed with open arms. He thought of death often now, in just that way. But like everything in life, death will happen when it happens, and who knows, he thinks, maybe he’ll cheat the collector of souls once again. He closes his eyes to rest a moment from the effort expended turning his worthless body in this direction. Oh how wonderful, and agile, and strong his body once was, he thought with a sad smile. But not being a bitter man and knowing he had gotten all a person could expect from a body designed to house a soul for seventy-four years, he felt fortunate that it had given him that, and ten more for good measure. And his brain, that wonderful organ that houses your ability to reason, and stores knowledge and memories, those wonderful memories, had continued to function well. That is until just recently, it seems, when a strange and wonderful thing occurred.

On a night several weeks ago, the house was silent and still, except for the occasional unidentifiable sounds that old houses make when the world outside is silent and a listening ear is alert enough to catch it. Unidentifiable it was, but not in a frightening way. The old man had heard these sounds for many years and they were always comforting to him, as they were now. Getting very old is much like being very young in sleep patterns. He dozed more now than he slept, and he tossed and turned, as he was doing this night. As he turned once again to his right side facing the omnipresent stack of books on the nightstand, he was aware of what seemed like two rays of light atop the stack. His eyesight, which had never been good uncorrected, and now with the aging process taking it’s toll, images were not always bright and clear to him. He blinked his eyes a time or two and looked again. The rays of light were still there and he was able to recognize them as eyes, glowing eyes. Now why he was not scared out of his wits, he never knew, but he suspected that since he was not always lucid now, and he knew it, that perhaps this was one of those times and he was imagining things or events that were not real. Whatever the case, he stared back at the two glowing eyes, and whispered “Hello there”, in the direction of the eyes. The bravado or stupidity of the act never occurred to him as he spoke the words, so he was not overly surprised when the glowing eyes answered back, “Hello to you too, my friend.” The old man gave a start, but then relaxed and stared until his eyesight seemed to clear and he was treated to the sight of two big ears, a pointed snout, long whiskers and a long tail. It was a mouse, he thought, not a regular mouse, but a mouse wearing horn-rimmed glasses. A sight to make an old man smile, and he did. There he sat, atop the stack of books as calm as could be. Not scared or skittish, but calm and collected, waiting politely, it seemed, for the old man to speak.

“I suppose I’m off on some drug induced trip, but it’s good to see you, Mr. Whatever your name is,” the old man said, as he looked askance at the mouse standing on the pile of books.

“Well, quite the contrary”, answered the mouse, “in fact your eyes are quite clear, and I believe all your mental faculties are functioning well for a man of your age”.

The old man was astounded by the mouse’s vocabulary and mentioned that to him. The mouse acknowledged that his vocabulary was superior to most mice, but he had spent many years acquiring his knowledge from well-known colleges in the mouse world and by constant reading.

“My name, by the way, is Winston James Cartier. You may call me Winston.”

The old man was impressed with the name, and it fitted him nicely. He seemed, to the old man, to be a mentally superior mouse indeed, to say the least.

“Thanks Winston, I shall. By the way my name is Augustus Robert Clary. You can call me Gus, if you prefer.” He said as a way of contrasting Winston’s option of correctness in his name preference. But if Winston took it as a reproach, the old man never knew as he smiled and nodded.

“Well Gus”, Winston said, “seems you’re a little depressed these days. Of course, I’m sure you feel that life has pitched you a hard inside fast ball, but you are of an advanced human age as you know.”

“No, to the contrary Winston, I don’t feel as if I’ve taken a cruel blow, I know I’m dying”, he paused for a brief second or two, “it’s just that dying is such a lonely road to go down.” Winston thought he was through speaking, but the old man started up again as if awakening from a deep thought. “We humans”, he began, “have many, many books available on the subject of dying, so we should be prepared, and we are, to a point, I believe, but it’s a road you must go down alone. It’s not fair to try and take loved ones too close to the path with you. They’ll have their time and once is enough.”

Winston mused that over for a while, then decided not to comment and asked instead, “Tell me about the women in your life Gus”.

Gus was surprised at such a request. “Wait a minute Winston, what the heck are you asking?”

‘No really,” Winston repeated, “I want to know more about you. Come on, you can clean up any parts you’d like,” he said with a smile.

Gus looked at Winston for a moment, “There was really only one woman in my life. I met her young, and kept her for sixty years. She gave me children, with a little help from me, of course, and we had fun in the creation process. I was never lonely when she was around, not for one minute. We talked and talked for sixty years. I wonder how any two people could have that much to say to each other. Oh, I really miss her,” he said and sighed, “but those were good years with a few being better than others”. He stopped and just gazed at Winston.

“I’ve never married,” Winston said, “but I would imagine that you gave each other purpose and direction in this life, is that not true?”

“Well, sure that’s true.” Gus answered.

“And now you feel that you have no purpose, no reason for carrying on, isn’t that right?” Winston responded.

“Good try my little mouse friend, but you don’t win a silver dollar for that one. Yes, I miss her terribly, every day, and I have no doubt I’ll see her again when I leave this life. But time is relative as you certainly know, and I’m certainly not trying to end this life any sooner than is necessary. I’ll wait. If it’s tomorrow, that’s good, if it’s a year from now, that’ll be okay too.” Gus relaxed, and paused a few seconds, then said in a questioning tone, “No, I’m anxious and ready for the gathering above, but what I’m not too sure of is how forgiving St. Peter at the gates will be. I have not lived a saintly life, and at times I have been too human, with all the foibles that entails. I’m not Catholic, so I don’t believe in purgatory, but even so, I don’t think I’m in for a free pass through the gates.”

Winston gazed at Gus with a condescending look over the tops of his glasses, “I have it on good authority that many theologians of different faiths believe that God is an all forgiving God, thus your admittance is assured.”

“I wish with all my heart that I could believe that in its entirety, but being human for all these many years, I know that we must take responsibility for our actions, and sooner or later we must pay the piper. Sorry for the metaphor. I suppose in the scheme of things, my sins might be a little less than some others, but who’s to know. Among our contemporaries the same sin today is probably less a sin than it was when I was young, but my brain cannot make that ninety or one hundred eighty degree turn on the judgment scale.”

Winston, in a consolatory tone of voice answered, “Agustus, my belief is that it is a matter of intent. When you sinned did you intend to sin?”

“Well no, it was not my intention to sin, but I knew the difference. I knew I was crossing over from right to wrong. I knew my sin would be hurtful to the other person, but I went right ahead anyway. But as in the old children’s story Pinocchio, I was blessed or cursed with a conscience as hard on me as Jiminy Cricket was on poor Pinocchio. I have felt contrition for my sins all my long life. But is that really enough to minimize the damage caused by me? I’m not sure of the extent of any damage I may have caused, or even if there was any, but regardless, whatever damage there was or is rests with me. Is there a statute of limitations on sin? I don’t think so.”

“Mister Augustus Robert Clary, I must say I am much impressed with you. I could regale you with a hundred platitudes and a hundred psychological theories, but I think you have it about figured out. Your theory of walking this earth and enjoying the fruits of your labors, but also bearing responsibility for your deeds and misdeeds are indeed commendable. I salute you and believe you are a good man. I could say what I believe will happen to you in the next world, but I think you know better than all of us. I have to go now Augustus, it’s getting toward dawn and if your caretaker were to see me, she would more than likely treat me rudely, so I will take my leave now and wish you well.”

Winston turned to go, then turned back again, “I believe, Mr. Clary, that the chances of you still being on this earth tonight are approximately seven to three according to all indicators I have studied in the medical books I have access to.”

He smiled then and turning away for the last time, looked over his shoulder. “If you are here tonight as I believe you will be, I would like to chat with you some more. Perhaps I can learn something I don’t know, however I doubt it.” Winston gave a quick smile, did a beautiful about face and walked jauntily away.

To be continued.

2009-03-04T05:26:00.001-08:00

AUGUSTUS AND WINSTON

CONVERSATIONS:

THE MIND

By Jim Kittelberger

His eyes, wide open, stared at the ceiling at that gray on gray time of the night. That time when your mind sees everything crystal clear without the coloration of sun and shadows; When everything is so clear and dimensional, without hopes or wishes to cling to; when the truth is so omnipresent it is accompanied by an almost physical pain, and there is absolutely no place to hide, no appeals to make, no excuses, no chance of a mistake. It’s the time when truth, your truth, crashes into you head on.

It was that moment for Gus. He knew his moment of truth was arriving, when the future, his future, was written in the shadows of the ceiling. He knew for a certainty that he would never again leave this bed. He knew that he would never again feel that built up physical energy, pent up after a good nights sleep and hardly able to contain itself one minute longer, straining to burst free and run. Just run, full out, with the wind in his face, running just for the hell of it because it felt so good, no reason for it except the feeling of legs raising and lowering like pistons, well-oiled and functioning as God planned for them to work. Sweat breaking out on his forehead, falling as gravity says it must, into his eyes and stinging; then falling, with no thought of pain, injury, or reason, onto the clean smelling grass and rolling until he lay on his back, arms and legs spread wide, looking up into the sun, smiling to himself, just because it seems like such a natural thing to do.

Gus lies there in his bed, smiling the smile he remembered from so long ago, when a familiar voice breaks into his reverie.

“That smile you have on your face tells me you must be revisiting the good times you had in your youth, in that bordello across the border”, came the irreverent voice of his companion these days, Winston Cartier.

“You know”, retorted Gus, “It just occurred to me that your initials are WC, I think it might stand for Water Closet, that place where your mouse mind resides.”

“That’s pretty good for an old coot like you,” responded Winston, “it shows you still have a little life left in you,” he said, showing Gus little or no sympathy for his present physical condition, or his status as a human.

“It’s good to see you again, you little badgering know-it-all, even with that toilet mouth of yours. Even though you’re dead wrong about where my mind was residing at the moment of your arrival.”

“Well, my frail friend, your mind is, well, your mind. It’s yours to use for good or ill. A quite powerful instrument for a piece of matter that only weighs three pounds, that is for you humans. For us in the mouse kingdom, it is of course less in direct relation to our size. Of course, in my case, if you believe in heredity, my offspring, if I choose to have any, should have a larger allocation of brain space. It is well known…..”

“Stop please,” interjected Gus. “I can’t take anymore. I am well aware of your mental powers, but please, I’m not a well man and I can take only so much baloney, from man or beast, er mouse.”

“As a matter of fact,” Gus continued, “The source of the smile you happened to glimpse, was from one of the powers of our brain, our memory. I happened to be recalling, quite vividly, I might add, a moment in life where nothing else mattered except the moment. When life is stretched out in front of us forever, and time is irrelevant. Death was a nebulous term with no meaning. Our grandparents were still with us and the only time that word death had any meaning was perhaps at the death of a pet goldfish or dog, sad, but forgotten with the acquiring of a substitute. Perhaps, as I think of it now, it teaches a bad lesson, or no lesson at all, that death is not a permanent thing, and when it happens, we just acquire a different colored fish, or a dog with more hair. We learn nothing from the experience, and it teaches us that life, human or animal, is cheap and easily replaced.

“Maybe you didn’t learn anything Gus,” Winston replied, “but that’s just your experience. The mind doesn’t control us and tell us what to think or how to process information it receives. With it’s ten billion nerve cells it does a very good job of processing, but you have to interpret what information you get, but this is all getting too involved, and young humans are not yet old enough to make proper decisions with the information they receive, but I can assure you the experience is catalogued away and will be remembered forever and used as a database for making proper decisions at a later time in their lives. You higher class of vertebrates sometimes are a little dense, but eventually, if given enough time, will get it.”

“You don’t have to tell me the power of the mind, you wisenheimer rodent, I remember a time in my life when I was angry most of the time, angry because of my dissatisfaction with a situation that I could do nothing about, but I wore my bad attitude like a ill-fitting suit. That is until one day, while talking to my wife about my troubles, it came upon me like an epiphany that no one cared about my problems, except me and of course my poor wife who had to listen to the constant whining. It was like I discovered America and it was so simple. It was all in my mind. So many learned people had written books on the subject of positive thinking, but I was blind to them, until I changed my thinking and overnight, really, overnight my life changed.” Gus shook his head, “It was all so simple and I was too dumb to know it.”

“Life is a learning experience until we die,” said Winston, “I’m sure you’re still learning as you lie in what will surely be your death bed. Some sage says what you have accumulated through all your years is wisdom. Not just facts, but the experience to know what works and when to use it.” Winston actually smiled wistfully at the old man, then asked, “Tell me Gus, if you had the opportunity to live your life over, would you do anything differently? Now I’m not the genie with three wishes, not even one, so your answer is just rhetorical, I sadly cannot offer you new life.” Winston actually seemed moved just a little by asking the old man to rethink his entire life and encapsulate a gem for posterity, the answer for a happy life.

Gus laid his head back down on his pillow and thought for a moment. “Gladly, I can say I would not change much, except one thing. One thing sounds like I would wish for one more Hershey bar and that would close out a happy life, but the one thing I wish I would have done that I did not do, was to exercise the brain God gave me, by going on further in my schooling. I don’t have any way of knowing what would come from taking that path, but I feel it may have been like dropping a stone in the water and concentric circles appear over and over, expanding out to the shore. The waste, if that’s what it was, was my own doing, so I only have myself to blame for not knowing what might have been.”

Gus finished and looked over at his inquisitor, agitator, debating partner, late night companion and friend, “Not too bad, don’t you think, that I hold no grudges, owe no man, and have had the love of a wonderful woman and only have one regret for a lifetime, and that is wasting only what was mine to begin with.”

Winston, tipped his hat, an affectation he acquired after watching Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady, and replied, “Don’t get yourself all pumped up you old coot, with that pretentious eulogy you just gave yourself. You were probably too darn lazy to use anymore of your brain than you did, so be grateful with what you accomplished using only half of the brain God gave you and go to sleep dreaming about whatever you were dreaming about before. I still think it was that bordello just over the border and Madam Rosa’s best girls you were smiling about.”

Gus laughed out loud and then slept.

2009-03-04T05:25:00.001-08:00

Augustus and Winston

Conversations:

WAR

Gus’s caretaker had propped pillows up against the headboard, allowing him to sit up,

and it felt wonderful. Pictures were strewn all about him, as his parents,

his children and his wife looked back at him courtesy of Mr. Eastman’s magic lantern.

All you had to do was look at the hues of the prints to determine the age of the subjects.

Dad and Mom were standing erect with not a hint of a smile. Getting your picture taken

in those days seemed to be a serious business. His children grew older and younger as

the photographs lay in no chronological order, and the memories came back in no order

accordingly. He had been blessed with good children, but it seemed by looking at the

pictures that he might have favored one over the other if you counted each image. But

in the march of changing technology, one was recorded by the still camera, another by

silent movies, and another by photographic slides, so on some future day, probably soon,

when they would sort through their father’s picture box, they might attach the amount of pictures,

many or few, to favoritism, although that certainly was never the case. But that will be up

to the individuals mindset, as it always is, and factored in with hundreds of other pieces of

the life they knew, until the final piece is assembled, and ‘the father’ they are comfortable

with and will remember for the rest of their lives appears.

A sudden sadness came over Gus as he pulled an often-handled photo out from under the pile.

A picture of a young, lean man with chiseled cheekbones and ash colored hair, named Hank

Potter from Norman, Oklahoma looked back at him. He, like hundreds of other men from

Oklahoma in those days, was nicknamed Okie. He stood posing in front of a tent, offering

him a taste of something from a tin can with the lid still attached and pulled back. He was

rubbing his stomach, in pantomime confirming the deliciousness of the rations; a cigarette

rested on his ear, a treat to be savored later after he had finished off the wonderful meal he

was pleased to share with him.

It was a happy day for all of us. We had survived the war and were preparing for shipment

home, except for Okie. He had decided that he really didn’t have much to go home to, and

he had found a home in the Army, as they liked to say. He was going to re-enlist. It was

the last picture taken of Okie before we shipped out.

It was the only picture he still had of Okie. They had written a couple letters back and forth,

but that soon petered out, as Okie got busy when Korea heated up and he went back to the

business of soldiering big time. The last letter he received was from a soldier he didn’t know

who explained that one of Hank’s wishes was that he be notified if anything happened to him.

He was killed when the North Koreans, aided by the Chinese, counter-attacked and pushed

the Americans into a full-scale retreat. The soldier said that Hank was one of the first killed,

so he didn’t live to be part of the retreat. He thought that might be a comfort to Gus. It hit him

hard and the pain never really went away, it just went down a level to a tolerable degree and

stayed there with the memories of his wife.

War is such a waste, he thought once again, and now he would have to worry about his grandson,

who only this past week had gotten orders to prepare for deployment. He was sitting surrounded

by his pictures, eyes closed, with his head lying back on his pillows when a now familiar voice

interrupted his thoughts.

“Are we having a bad day Gus? Or are you trying to get a little shut-eye?” came the reedy voice

of Winston Cartier, his now daily visitor. Winston, a mouse of heroic intelligence, and little patience

with self-pity, stood at his accustomed spot on the bedside table, standing atop whatever Gus was

currently reading. His outfit of the day indicated that he must have been reading Gus’s thoughts.

He was dressed all in khaki; shirt, trousers and necktie.

Gus, pleased to see his visitor, answered. “Neither; in the way you mean my friend, I’ve been

reminiscing about my war and worrying about my grandson’s war, and thinking that war has got

to be the most inane way to settle things ever devised by man. And it was man who devised it,

not God, because he wouldn’t have anything to do with it, of that I’m positive. You know, I find

it obscene that when we’re at war, both sides of the conflict invariably try to co-op God to their

side. Damn, that galls me. If we must fight these wars every ten years or so somewhere on the

planet, the blame should be on the combatants and not God, nor should we, or they, solicit his

blessings and put him at the head of the marching column and pretend that ‘our war’, ‘our side’,

is the side sanctioned and condoned by him. Nothing is farther from the truth and you know it.

If we must fight, and it seems we must, and right has to be on our side, then the people should be

the ones that sanction our role in it. Leave God out of it, he will be busy enough gathering up the

souls of those killed in the stinking conflicts that follow.”

“You’re really wound up in this aren’t you my friend”, said Winston, sitting down now since his

friend Gus seemed quite eager and ready to continue. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying,

that God has no responsibility for what is going to happen?”

“No, I’m not saying that at all. What I am saying is this. War’s are made by man, and will be fought

by man. But each side invariably wants to put God in a flak jacket and a helmet, marching at the head

of the column with a weapon slung over his shoulder, because our cause is divinely right. No, No, No.

I think God looks at us killing each other and is properly disgusted with all of us.”

“Then,” Winston broke in, “you don’t believe in the Just War Theory?”

“I’m not sure I know what that is.”

“Well as you know, war’s have been going on forever. Even the bible hints at ongoing discussions

about ethical behavior during wars. Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote at length about justifications of war,

and kinds of activity that are permissible. Moral considerations involving woman and children and

treatment of prisoners are deemed honorable and should be adhered to, or dishonor will befall those

who don’t adhere to the code. Indeed the Just War Theory believes that wars can be just, if they are

fought ethically, and morally.”

Gus sat back and closed his eyes. “I’ve been in war, and I’ve thought a lot about war, but I don’t think

I have ever thought about war being a moral undertaking. At least to the one’s who have to do the killing.

I think it boils down to a kill or be killed proposition. Even in the Second World War, which was most

likely America’s ‘Just War’, or as Studs Terkel titled his book, The Good War, when you boil it down to

it’s essentials, it’s a killing game and I bet the parents of a fallen combatant on either side believe their son

has fought and died for the right reasons, and for the right side. They have to, or they would never be able

to go on with life. I think the term, a Just War, and The Good War is nothing but an oxymoron. Wars are

dirty and immoral consequences of intelligent people not being able to find a better solution. In these days

of instant world-wide communications between world leaders it is inconceivable to me that reasonable men

cannot find men of like mind and bypass the barbaric acts of war.”

Gus lay back on his pillow, out of breath, and out of words to express his sadness and frustrations over

yet another armed conflict in the offing, and this one would include his grandchild.

Winston was, at this point, more than a little concerned that his friend Gus may have squandered too much

of his diminishing supply of energy on a subject that is at best perplexing and most probably unsolvable.

Although he understood that once a person is personally involved in war, it remains a hot subject never to

be forgotten or softened by the passage of time. As far as the abolishment of all war, it seemed an

impossible idea at best. War is a lucrative undertaking and will boost the economies on any country

taking part, as long as you win of course, and America being the only superpower on the map these

days, the economic gains are motivation to move the country in that direction if at all possible. But to

bring this, or any other theory up to Augustus at this time would upset him and maybe push him over

the edge into the only place that will assure him of peace eternal. Winston was not ready to lose his

new friend just yet, so this and other thoughts on why war is not repugnant to any civilized person would

have to wait until he recovered himself, if he ever could.

2009-03-04T05:24:00.001-08:00

The neighborhood eight and A. jones
By Jim Kittelberger

The Neighborhood Nine were down to eight, and the big game was coming up. The rules were tight and had to be followed. Only kids who lived within their area could play. The team had done well all season, but now the biggest game of the season was coming up against the Mean Machine. The Mean Machine from the industrial area of town were big and tough and good.

They looked the rulebook over and over, but there were no loopholes. Nine must play and they had to be from the team's area. The eight didn't know what to do. They moaned and groaned and scratched and spit. They whined, and grumbled and pounded the mitt.

In the background, stood a skinny freckle faced girl with sandy hair in pigtails, tucked under a baseball cap. She wore rolled up jeans and droopy socks and a shirt half in her pants and half out. Her name was Agnes and girl stuff was not enough for her. Her dream was not to be Miss America, or prom queen, or a cheerleader. No, Agnes' greatest dream was to be a shortstop, not a girl shortstop, but the greatest shortstop ever there was. She wanted to be better than Omar, Nomar and Jeter. But the boys would not let her play. They just laughed and said she was just a girl and a skinny one at that. But now, maybe now, when they had to have one more player...maybe now was Agnes' turn.

What were the eight to do? How could they show up for the big game with eight and Agnes? But no other options were to be found, so on the day of the big game there they were, Bobby and Tommy, Joe and Sam, Maxie, Georgie, Jimmy, Timmy and the new guy A. jones.

The game was tight and the teams were full of fight. Machine was up by one in the second, the Neighborhood Eight and A. jones tied it in the fourth and went ahead in the sixth. The day was hot and tempers were too, and the Machine forged ahead to show they were not through. The bottom of the ninth was here and the Neighborhood Eight and A. jones were behind by one.

Maxie led off with a hit and hope was born. Georgie and Jimmy did their best, but the Machines pitcher put them to rest. Next up was Timmy, but he had not gotten on base all day and it looked bad for the eight and A. jones. The count was full, three and two, when Timmy knew what he had to do. The pitcher wound up his long arm and let it fly and Timmy let it hit him in the eye. Take a base.

So here it was bottom of the ninth, two out, two on, one run behind, and coming to bat was the skinny new kid, A. jones. Agnes had made Omar, Normar and Jeter proud, but now it was A. jones against the biggest, strongest boy of all, six foot tall and born from steelworkers, tough and mean, but backing down would destroy her dream.

A. jones dug in at the plate, and stared at the mound. Pitcher stared at batter, and neither blinked. The battle lines were drawn and no quarter was to be given or expected. A. jones scratched the dirt with her cleats, and the pitcher tossed the rosin bag down at his feet.

The pitcher rubbed the ball and squeezed it hard, showing his muscles to all in the yard. The batter stared back and dared him to throw it past her if he could. He wound up and plateward it flew, spinning and twisting like a magical round orb and into the catchers glove, strike one. Ohh, gasped the boys in the dugout. A. jones looked their way and gave a reassuring smile, as if she knew what was coming next.

Pitcher stared at the catcher, gave a long look and shook off one sign. He looked in again and shook off another sign. The third sign got a nod and he rocked his big body and the ball came out of his hand as if shot from a cannon. A. jones' body became a coordinated batting unit, arms flexed, and the bat starting forward as the ball streaked towards the plate. A. jones felt the air move as the ball smacked into the catchers mitt and she nearly screwed herself into the ground as her bat met nothing but air. No balls, two strikes, no room for error now. A. jones stepped back, stared at the pitcher, then stepped back in and waited for another hard fast one. The pitcher glared and launched another equally fast cannon shot right at the batters belt. A. jones squared her body in front of the plate and put down a beautiful drag bunt, leaving the pitcher shocked and the catcher struggling to get to the ball. The man on third streaked toward the plate as A. jones dashed toward first. They started their slides at the same time and as dust rose from home plate and first base, the two umpires bellowed in unison, "Safe."

As it is in life and in the movies, when the dust had finally settled, years had passed, and another youngster was standing on first base trading high fives with his first base coach. He was smiling as he stood there, thinking once again how thankful he was that his mom, A. jones, had taught him all of her baseball skills.

2009-03-04T05:23:00.001-08:00

ELDERLY-MAN: An Adventure

By Jim Kittelberger

What the heck do you do with yourself all day? The adventures of elderly-man

If you’re retired, you’ve heard this question a dozen times. I

Sometimes wonder the opposite, what did I do before I retired.

Since retirement, wonderful new worlds have opened up for me,

Almost like a renaissance of a sort. My wife and I, separately or together

Seem to need more time each day to do whatever it is we do.

Of one thing I’m certain, each day brings that feeling I used to

Get when I had a snow day off from school, unexpected freedom

From worry and stress, at least for another day. Except in retirement

It is every day. How many times during your working life, did you

Look outside and see the snow piling up or the rain coming down so

Hard you knew you’d drown in it, and you wished you could just put

On another cup of coffee or tea and open a book and settle in and

Ignore the outside. Well we do have that freedom, and the feeling

Is exactly the same, wonderful unscheduled time to go where ever

Your heart and mind leads you.

What you have read above is exactly the way it should be. You have worked hard and earned your time for relaxation, travel, or whatever you most enjoy. It is not the time to be taken advantage of. If you and/or your spouse have a problem you cannot handle because of your age, contact me, elderly-man and I will set it right and I will enjoy doing it. I can be contacted at the following number. When life no longer seems fair, contact Elderly-Man and he will make the difference.

Till then,

Elderly-man stands ready to fight all foes, right any wrongs,

“What the devil are you doing Bruce?” Her brittle voice jolted him back to reality. “I thought I told you to take the garbage out; it’s starting to stink, and when you get done with that I’ve got something else for you to do,” exclaimed Helga, exasperated once again at having Bruce under her feet all day now since he retired and losing patience with his ineptness at almost everything he has tried since then.

Well, in real life I’m not exactly your everyday superhero, but in my mind I could live a different life, Bruce thought. For example, just yesterday as I was running an errand to the supermarket, I witnessed a bus driver berating an elderly woman about being too slow to exit his bus. I morphed from Bruce into elderly-man and presented myself at the bus door. As I stood there looking in, the driver in his most bully-loud voice asked if I was sightseeing or was I getting on, I was holding up his schedule. In my greatest duke/clint walk, I entered his bus, and to the drivers great surprise and subsequent fear, lifted him out of his seat by the lapels of his jacket, and proceeded to educate him about the etiquette required from him from this point on to all senior citizens. Further, if I got any report of his belligerent talk, and impolite attitudes, he would be eternally sorry. Of course, he cringed like a beaten dog and acknowledged his wicked ways and promised to correct them. I smiled the smile of righteousness and thought it would be nice and proper if he stood and apologized to all his passengers for his misdeeds, which of course he did. The folks on the bus gave him the look that promised if he did not change they would again contact elderly-man and he would be forever sorry. Then they all stood, smiling and applauded him for his good work. Elderly-man puffed out his chest, smiled the smile of right and good, gave them a wave and off he went, another bad mannered ruffian set right.

“Well,” she shouted, “are you going to do what I asked or do I have to do everything around here? You’re such a wuss.”

Oh if she only knew, he thought, and he smiled that elderly-man smile.

2009-03-04T05:22:00.001-08:00

BE A MAN, THEY SAY.

Be a man, they say.
All through the years,
At each turn in the road,
I've remembered.

Get on that train, they say
To basic training far away.
Don't shirk your duty,
Be a man.

Don't let him talk to you that way,
Clench you fist and enter the fray,
Don't turn away,
Be a man.

The winners been selected,
And it wasn't you,
But don't let rejection discourage,
Get right back up start all over again,
Be a man.

I hate to tell you this,
But the disease will win in the end,
Show us all how courageous you can be,
Be a man.

I've remembered,
But would I be less a man,
If only I could cry?

2009-03-04T05:21:00.001-08:00

ALMOST THERE

By Jim Kittelberger

The door slams behind me, loud in the quiet night,

Winter moonlight bathes the tundra

Work boots crunch a frigid cadence

Diamonds in the snow sparkle its fools gold

Do not linger

Silent eternity awaits the foolish

The cold invades my clothing

Quicker the crunching sound

I must hurry; I must hurry

The wind arrives unexpected as death

Snow swirling, envelopes me in white sheets

I’ve lost my way, make a quick back track while I may

Tears spring unbidden from my eyes and turn to ice

I must hurry

My tracks are being covered, but I know it’s this way

Yes I know I’m right

Crunch; crunch

Quickly, the enemy panic arrives

Faster; faster

I can’t see, should I go ahead, or back or

Oh God, help me

I’m so tired

There, under that tree I’ll wait

I’ll wait and think

It has to stop soon

I’ll rest and wait

I hope my love will forgive me for being late

I’ll just close my eyes for a moment

2009-03-04T05:20:00.003-08:00

Baseball, I Love It.
BY JIM KITTELBERGER

Here comes the pitch, he swings, and oh my he hit it high and deep, its outta here, and the Indians win it in the bottom of the ninth. How about that!

If those words don't give you a thrill, then you're not a baseball fan and I can't imagine why you're not. From the time I was a small boy, I have loved this game.

H/R/RBI/ERA/BB/K/HR/E/BA/W/L. This is the alphabet of the game. These are the indicators of success or failure for the practitioners of the game. It's money in the bank for those talented ones who have good numbers and a ticket out of town for those that don't. A boy may have a problem with his algebra but he will have no problem with the statistics of baseball.

There is not a boy that does not remember his first time in a major league ballpark. The bigness of it, the first hot dog, the memorabilia, the walk up the ramp and then that first sight of the field that you knew only in your dreams and imagination, the sight that fills your senses. It is so green; so beautiful; the bases and foul lines are so white; the scoreboard so big; the seats so red or green. Then the heart starts pumping, because there on that beautiful field is a person who is so much bigger than real life, someone you have idolized, someone you would like to be, someone who does heroic things, who stirs your soul, is right there in front of you. These pictures and feelings will remain with you always, as real fifty years from now as if they were yesterday.

Baseball is a game that is a great leveler. Bigness does not mean greatness. A small man can be the hero and slay dragons. Skill is the element that raises these men above all others. Can you imagine standing 60 feet from someone and he throws a round, hard object at you at speeds up to 95 mph and you are expected to hit it with a 34 ounce piece of wood, and sometimes that hard object curves or dips before it gets to you. Being able to throw it that fast or being able to hit it. That takes skill that only very few people have.

How can you not love a game where the rules have hardly changed a whit since its inception? It's the law of life in pinstripes. If you have the God given talent, follow the rules and master the game you can be the idol of boys from all over the world. It is order, it is precise, and it is beautiful.

Baseball has become big in the movie business. The Natural, Major League, Field of Dreams, Beat the Drum Slowly, these have all been good moneymakers for Hollywood. What do they have in common? Average guys becoming big guys through baseball, and isn't that every boys dream. If you have the skill, can learn the rules and play within those rules you can achieve your dreams. Not a bad thing to teach kids.

So the next time you're feeling beat and your job is wearing you down, grab a coke and hit your favorite chair, turn on the baseball game and try to remember what it was like the first time you went in that stadium and enjoy.

2009-03-04T05:20:00.001-08:00

A Retired Man's Period of Adjustment
An Essay by Jim Kittelberger

Here it is ten o'clock in the morning, and I am sitting around in my robe trying to figure out what to do today. I remember when I was preparing to retire, one of the things high on my list of what I would NOT do, was sit around at ten o'clock in the morning trying to figure out what to do. I would schedule my time and involve myself in matters of the mind and body. I would read a book a week, and join discussion groups to figure out what I had just read. I would keep my body in trim. I would not become one of those overweight, gone to seed, ex-whatever's.

Welcome to my world, here I sit at mid morning, sporting a three-day growth of beard wearing a robe that no longer covers my inflated, unchisled, camouflaged abs, pondering my next move. This is not to imply that even in my good days were my abs chiseled, but this is ridiculous. Well, after running my hands through my as yet unshowered, unshampooed, too long since I've been to the barber hair, I have decided to rededicate myself to a life of worth, to perform works for the betterment of mankind AND womankind. Now here I have to pause a little trying to figure out just what that might be. But anyway, you get the idea. I am Man, I am not ready to be dumped in the surplus store of redundant old men. I am going to put myself through a regimen for mind and body and come out a new and more vital elder statesman, ready to offer my vast knowledge of the ways of the world and how to navigate its intricate, dangerous paths to all who seek my wisdom.

As I am sitting on the side of my bed, feeling noble and wise, my grandson appears at my door, and asks if I would play in the sandbox with him? A trip of many miles must start somewhere and if the sandbox with my grandson is not the destination I was thinking of, it seems somehow to be just what I want to do. After an hour of mentally losing about fifty-six well worn years, and indulging myself in the world of the six year old, which surprisingly was not too hard to do, I reemerged into my sixty-two year old body and mind still unshaven, unwashed and unshampooed. At my lovely wives subtle hint, a finger pointed toward the bathroom, I marched dirty but happier to enter the world of the clean and socially acceptable.

The youthful highly muscled man in the commercial flexes his muscles and tells me that my flabbiness and general lack of fitness can be remedied. The only reason, he adds, that I don't have women walking by me and with a sexy glance saying, "Nice Buns", and smiling knowingly, is because I do not use the Bowflexor. With this machine, you lie down on a bench and pull the bowflexor down and then add more weight to make it a challenge. I think about this for a few moments and the vision comes to me of not only feeling, but hearing my muscles and tendons and whatever other stringy stuff we have in our bodies going twang, twang, twang, as if in an echo chamber, and I never rise off that bench again. I think I will settle for a leisurely walk around the block with my wife. She never tells me I have nice buns. Oh well.

A diet. That's it, a diet. When the road to wellness leads through a gym with all the sweat and aches and pain, my mind, steel trap that it is, thinks maybe I should lose the weight first, then tone up what's left. Yes, that the ticket. A diet. Through the years, I have been on many kinds of diets. Carbo diets, protein diets, a cabbage soup diet, guaranteed to make those pounds drop off as you watch. Me, not liking to go through pain alone, always asks my good wife to accompany me down that mined road. Her being the good wife, usually does. The cabbage soup diet consisted of eating several portions of this obnoxious mixture several times a day. I remember calling my wife from work and telling her I was in maximum crankiness from the darn cabbage soup, thus ended the cabbage soup fiasco, although I did not need any bran in my diet for about a week. So today for breakfast I had a cup of tea and a piece of toast. Lunch, one hotdog and a diet Pepsi. Snack at three o'clock, a piece of cake and a cup of coffee. At five I thought I would have one cheese-it and maybe a glass of water. I did it. One cheese-it followed by six pretzels, seven more cheese-its and four jalapeno flavored pretzel pieces, several soda crackers with butter and more water. Things might not be going too well.

The computer, the conduit of the information age, something that does not take much physical strength to operate or the brain of Einstein to use turns out to be the primary source of my mind enhancement program. While searching for historical essays, I happen to fall into the dancing baby web site. I spend half a day watching him dance to the macarena, a couple rock tunes, and a waltz or two. His footwork and rhythm amaze me. The next thing I want to know more about is the law. Just as I am ready to click on the Supreme Court site, I see a link to lawyer jokes, so I figure I will loosen up a bit with a few jokes about a very deserving group. After about thirty minutes with the law (jokes), it's time to take a break.

Well I have been on my mind and body rehab program for several months now. I haven't lost much weight and my mind is no sharper than it was and I still love to play with my grandsons. I sleep well, I love my wife and she tolerates me, I look forward to each day. I try to read more and I hate to admit it, but I like some of the stuff on television. We listen on occasion to our local orchestra play some beautiful music, and we explore our surroundings with pleasure. So if on occasion I happen to forget my razor and find myself at ten o'clock in the morning still in my robe, I will not misread this as sloth, but as a contented man that is sometimes a slow starter.

(C) copyright 2000 Jim Kittelberger. All Rights Reserved.