The first warm day in spring. Gossip. Hemorrhoids. Puppies. Flags. Vodka. Resentment. Regret. Windmills. Rock anthems. Cockroaches. Dante. The pyramids. Sugar. The grooviness of the Peace sign. Homemade pie. Being a bride. Giggling babies. Old pickups. Coffee. The woman at the help desk crying and swearing at the same time. Lightning, and then thunder. Clever quips of Oscar Wilde and Jersey Shore’s The Situation. The great American songbook, especially when very young singers sing them not knowing they are part of the great American songbook. Your college town. A good sonnet. Fancy cocktails. Mountain peaks. I Love Lucy physical comedy. Red onions. Being forgiven. Forgiving. Birgit Nilsson. The last page of Passage to India. Tater tot hot dish. Coney Island. Coney Island hot dogs. Old dogs, children, and watermelon wine. Travel to foreign places. Paris. King David mourning the death of his rebellious son Absalom: “O Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!” Reruns of “Green Acres” (but not, oddly enough, old reruns of “Petticoat Junction”). Waterfalls. Kids running out of Sunday school in April. Mosquitos. Mosquito bites. Women who made the right decision and divorced the bastard, and the one after that. Birds who look like they have divorced at least two bastards. A wood fire. The opening ceremony ballyhoo and brouhaha of the Summer Olympics. Sunrise on Lake Michigan. Falling into a book. Bedbugs. Sex. Paddling in a canoe on a perfectly still lake. Ballroom dancing. When, in the ridiculous “Pirates of Penzance”, all the pirates and wards in chancery fall to their knees and sing, a capella, “Hail Poetry!” Your wild youth. The marching band takes the field. Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox. Beating a machine at something. Bugs Bunny in a frock. Slow moving Illinois Central trains passing the quiet cemetery where he’s buried. U-Pick tomatoes.
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Today is the day that will always be the day that you equated Oscar Wilde and "the Situation." Hang your head in shame! Shame!! Shame!!!
Beautiful, Brian! I so look forward to seeing your writing. You got roaches and bedbugs; I’d add rats. In NYC during Covid, restaurants were allowed to build open sheds in parking spots on the street. The sheds are gradually getting torn down, but the rats seem to be willing to stay. I jokingly told a n old friend I hadn’t seen him “in a rats age”, not knowing how long a rat lives. I’m beginning to believe they are immortal.