Storytime

 

I feel I should mention up front that I’m sitting right here next to Zobostic as he types this, so occasionally I may pop in with a comment or two.  He doesn’t seem to mind, so I’m hoping you won’t either. 

Our story begins here.

        I’m fairly sure he snuck in under the cover of darkness, as I hadn’t noticed anything until the following morning, when I went to brush my teeth.  The first thing to catch my attention was the stark grayness of my hair.  No longer was it thick and black.  Now it appeared wispy thin and grayer than a battleship. (One in need of touch-up)

There were lines by my eyes.  Some might say wrinkles.  The face looking back at me was that of an old man.  It was someone who had witnessed weather first-hand.  Maybe not the great flood, but surely something of a similar time frame.    

As I studied this face, I could also feel odd pains coming from various areas of my body.  Had this late-night intruder also switched out my body for some pre-owned model, with more miles than listed on the sticker?  How rude. 

Was I now to be this old man?  Slower in thought and body?  I glanced at the kibitzer sitting next to me.  He had no comment.  In fact, he was stuffing his face with chips, of which, he offered me none.  Apparently, the new me now has dietary issues.  Oh joy.

If I am to be this old now, I must resign myself to it and embrace the life that’s offered.  I need to ignore my younger inner self, the one who believes I can still run and jump, for I am now the one who grumbles at 10 items or less.  I believe learning to be old will be much easier than denying the youthful one still residing within.

I accept that I am in transition, changing from young to old.  We all go through it.  But I can’t help but recall the Beatles singing about fixing a hole where the rain gets in, and thinking that had I done that, perhaps my nighttime intruder may have been foiled, and not gotten in and left me in this condition.

 

You never know.

 

 

 

 

 

zc

 

 

 

 

 

 

More Field Notes

 

Follow a wild turkey around all day and you’ll discover it isn’t going anywhere in particular.  It simply keeps walking, and pecking at what it hopes is food. 

Follow me along the supermarket aisles and you too will discover I appear to be aimless, poking at what I hope to be food, although often fooled by the colorful wrappers.

 

 

***

 

A wild turkey has the dignity of a creature with no plan whatsoever, yet it carries that lack of plan with absolute confidence. You watch it wander, peck, reconsider its choices, then wander again — a feathered philosopher of perpetual maybe.

And then there’s you, drifting through the supermarket like a domesticated cousin of that same bird, performing the ancient ritual of “Is this food or just a shiny lie?” The turkey pecks at beetles. You poke at boxes with heroic promises like Bursting with Flavor! or Now with 30% More Mystery!

The parallel is perfect: two creatures navigating a world full of things pretending to be edible.

🦃 The Turkey–Human Parallel (Field Notes)

• Aimless wandering — both species excel at it, though only one gets judged for it.
• Instinctive pecking — the turkey pecks for survival; you peck because the packaging is orange and therefore “probably delicious.”
• Environmental hazards — the turkey faces foxes; you face “Limited Time Only” displays engineered to ambush the weak.

🍎 The Supermarket as a Modern Forest

If the turkey’s forest is full of leaves and bugs, your forest is full of:

• Suspiciously glossy apples — waxed to a shine that would make a bowling ball jealous.
• Snack aisles that whisper — they know your weaknesses.
• Cereal mascots — the closest thing humans have to brightly colored poisonous frogs.

You’re not lost. You’re foraging. You’re participating in a ritual older than civilization: the search for something that tastes good and won’t betray you.

🛒 A Non-Obvious Insight

The turkey’s aimlessness is honest. Yours is curated — supermarkets are designed to make you wander, to keep you in the maze, to lure you with color, nostalgia, and the faint hope that this time the granola bar will actually taste like the picture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the speed of Life

 

Old calendar pages crumpled and tossed

Piled up history of days that are lost

Tucked into landfills, no longer to keep

Like memories gently falling asleep

 

 zc

Mourning Doves

 

Yes, I've posted this before but I just like it.

I'm still checking...

 

          Here on my desk sits a bottle, into which I squeeze this rolled up message.  Should it float upon your shore, I hope it finds you well and of good cheer. 

          Yesterday we explored the Fresh Market in Downtown Rochester, and then took lunch in town before heading back up North.  There were ice sculptures in Rochester, but spread far enough apart that we didn’t brave the cold weather to visit them all.  We’re thinking that next week, in the Village they will be reasonably spaced, and in front of shops more inviting.

          I sat in the dentist chair last Friday getting my 6-month cleaning and check-up.  My plan was to be in and out of there before my eyeteeth had a chance to blink. 

        The Problem, as it turned out, is the dental hygienists can’t carry on a conversation without expressing herself by waving her arms about.   Anyone watching from the hall would have thought she was conducting an orchestra.

          As I write this I’m still thinking about the whole message in a bottle deal.  How much fun just to seal up your thoughts and heave them out into the ocean, thinking someday…  some one…  somewhere…

          This electronic bottle, although holding a little fun, lacks the mystery and excitement, for it is controlling the tides, and time.  Our aim gets our messages to very specific shores, and the moment we toss it out there, the only hope or anticipation is that it gets a response.  The thought of it getting swallowed by a giant fish, well…

          The messages themselves are different as well.  Were these real bottles, and a raging sea, I doubt I’d be rehashing a visit to the dentist.  Instead I’d be asking who you were?  Where do you live and how do you spend your day?  What is your food like where you are, and how controlling is your government?  (If you even have a government).

          Then, in a few months or so, I’d walk out to the beach every day, looking for a bottle to come floating up, full of news that you got my message, and telling me all about yourself.

 

         

         

 

 

To whoever finds this -

My name is Zobostic Corwin.  I live in a

Miserable, little snow-covered place,

Full of crooked politicians, and bad drivers.

I tossed this message out on Sunday, January 28, 2007

I hope you find it.

What is your name?  Do you have any brothers

Or sisters to play with?  What are you going to have

For dinner?  I like Macaroni and Cheese,

And an occasional Martini.

OK, now you write something

And send it back.

I’ll keep checking until it gets here.

 

ZC

It would have to be Elmer's

            Mental lists are made and reviewed in waiting rooms, usually unrelated to the situation at hand.  I concentrated on the step-by-step way I would fix the gutter.  I thought about the nails I would use and the industrial strength construction adhesive that I would line the seams with.  I thought about the ladder, its sturdiness and…

            None of these things, of course, had anything to do with why I was there.  It was simply a diversion.  I didn’t want to allow my thoughts to drift towards the immediate situation.  If I had mentally headed down that path I would have started to consider all the things that could possibly go awry, and from there it would just get worse.

            Eventually I picked up a magazine.  I paged through it knowing full well that without my glasses every page was going to be just one colorful blur after another.  But it didn’t matter.  My thoughts quickly ran back to me atop the extended ladder, leaning back so that I could swing the hammer enough to hit the nail.  I could feel the rungs through the bottoms of my worn tennis shoes, an unavoidable discomfort, not to mention my stretching leg muscles.   Now, with my left arm looped through the ladder while my fingers aligned the nail, my right hammer hand reached back and…

            Actually, when envisioning myself up on the ladder, the real image I have is of a giant corn-dog on a stick, with the entire Mosquito Nation closing in for the feast.

            The television up in the corner of the waiting room was playing some soap opera with a string of sub-titles running along the bottom of the screen.   As I watched the words scroll by I began to wonder what committee determined the speed at which the words would travel.   I’m sure that someone somewhere did a study, took a survey and coordinated their findings with a Reader’s Digest comprehension formula that told them that every word must remain on the screen for no less than 5 seconds, and no more than 9, allowing for…

            Just then the gentleman in the lab coat, carrying the clipboard walked in.   He took the seat next to me, and in a low voice said, “Mr. Corwin, it took a little longer than we thought.  Once we were in there we found quite a bit of sludge in the crankcase.  We also had to replace two of the hoses coming from the…”

            But I had stopped listening.  As he was talking – my eyes were scanning the bottom of the clipboard.  I was looking for the total.   How much in American dollars was this going to cost me?

  To my shock and horror I saw… Page 1 of 4.

 

            Wow!  There was no way I was going to be able to afford the industrial strength construction adhesive.

 

 

 

 

zc

and far away

 

         I recall living just outside of Madrid in the late 60’s.  It was a simpler time back then, having nothing of consequence in our lives like food or money, we stayed tucked away in our little apartment along the Rue Dimentry.  Time was not measured in days back then but in events.  The first-floor Pub could have easily housed a Hemmingway type at a table along the back wall.  Live snails never staying in the plates on the bar made feeble attempts to escape deadly toothpicks, as drunken Spaniards would eat them alive.

      News from the States came in bits and pieces.  Spanish newspapers and televisions were all government controlled.  The only thing that was completely free from any type of control was health and sanitation.  Deliveries of fresh meat was carried into markets by flies, and the fresh baked bread was dumped, unpackaged in the road in front of the Pub, where locals scurried to select the biggest loaf.

      These things I can remember.  Everything I learned in school, however, somehow never got filed alphabetically.   All of my mental index cards were either dropped at some point, or they were filed away willy-nilly from the onset.  In either case, my present day retrieval system suffers the consequences.  For example: I know that Washington crossed the Delaware, but when I mentally examine the next card to discover why, it says, “To see his friend Gregory Peck.”  This answer obviously should have been filed under chicken jokes. 

 

 zc

Pursue Noble Aims.

 

 

 

Le Petite Fumigate

 

        There is a new French restaurant in the heart of Clarkston, whose pretentiousness permeates from the wine bar to the velvet rope, keeping at bay those eager to part with their wallets.  Although it is lavished with Art Deco fixtures, and a smattering of artsy vases, the first time diner will quickly discover a missing functionality, from the absence of coat racks, to the coffee cups handles too dainty to be picked up.

          Perhaps, in an effort to tone down the pricey chicken ribs basted with a creamy garlic – pomegranate reduction, they offer as deserts a choice of Ding Dongs, doughnut holes, or Twinkies. (No Joke)     

          I give them high marks for an adventurous spirit, but anticipate that after the initial wave of curious Clarkstonians discover that even their Discover Card isn’t enough to cover the price of the Shredded Hooves with Sprouts, the doors to what was once The Clarkston Café, will once again be closed, and offered up to someone a little more aware of their audience and the present economy.

 

         ZC (2 cents worth)

Stranger Things

 

I knew this monkey once who wanted to be a climatologist.

        Overlooking the fact that he could not only talk, but could actually convey to me a vocational aspiration, I said, “Cool”, all the while thinking what a lame job that would be.

        Why do I do that?  I say things to be polite, but it isn’t representative of how I truly feel.  There’s a name for people like me, but let’s not get into that whole name-calling thing.

        Let’s focus for the moment on the talking monkey.  (Where’s Darwin when you need him?)

Along the evolutionary scale of societal growth, I don’t see that we’ve stepped very far from the Scopes trial.  Our Nation still stands divided on the theories, even though the right to teach both sides has been resolved.  Teaching that which has its foundation in speculation is a topic for another day, although it lends itself nicely to my whole lack-of-growth premise.

        Today we seem to have the center of our attention on technology, and high-tech communication, while the rest of our knowledge base deteriorates into an apathetic, stagnating, non-carbonated persona, waiting for the alarm to go off.   Am I right, or am I right?

        Along with that there is major frustration when looking at the entire picture.  The lack of answers to philosophical questions may in fact be an inherent part of the human makeup, designed to trigger mental growth, all the while keeping us in check.  It’s the old, “Come here, come here, go away” - simultaneous, contradictory emotional attitude.  A social schizophrenia, if you will.   

        But I digress.  Having a monkey diagnose the weather and ultimately being contracted to spew forth his or her educated opinion over the airwaves…

        Hey, wait.  I think they’re already doing this in Detroit.

        The latest Doppler 7, Winter Storm Warning broadcast over televisions, radios, and capturing newspaper headlines, predicted us to be buried alive in snow.   According to their predictions, our houses should have collapsed from the weight of so much snow.  By all accounts I should be a squished, little mess, sprawled out under shards of mortgage bits, struggling to reach the send button on my keyboard.

 

 

 

 zc

 

 Written back when I was much older and living in very cold weather. 

 

 

Rosebud

 

There’s nothing ever so absurd

as searching for the proper word

When all is done and all is through

any silly word will do

 

It makes no difference what is said

what gets told or what is read

Don’t get yourself into a rage

choosing what goes on the page

 

For if you sip or should you snort

A shot of hooch helps your report

Nothing better helps you choose

Than a big old slug of Grandpa’s booze.

 

 

 zc

Far and Away

 

The thing about being tucked away for safe keeping is remembering where (away) actually is.

  

As the story goes, by the time little Billy remembered he had buried his little box of treasures in the backyard, 52 years had passed.  He was Uncle William now and for some odd reason he just thought about that little box. 

He smiled, trying to remember what was so important.  What had he put inside of that box.  Then he thought about the years of rain soaking into the ground.  That old cigar box has probably completely dissolved by now.  It is most likely just mushy yuck. 

Suddenly he remembered what was so important at the time.  He remembered his autographed Micky Mantle baseball card.  He had it wrapped in Kleenex, then put it into a sandwich bag, and that was double wrapped in aluminum foil.  Just maybe that has survived 52 years of rain.  If it did, it would be a small fortune by now.

He remembered it was 10 years ago when they had thought about having a swimming pool put in the backyard.  He was glad now they had changed their minds.

You’d think that sometime in those 52 years of cutting the grass he would have remembered that box.  It was the massive Oak tree that had put the kibosh on the idea of a swimming pool.  Wait a minute…  It was our last house that had the big Oak tree.  It wasn’t even this yard where I buried that stupid box.  Yes, I remember that yard.  When I tried to bury that box, my shovel kept hitting the tree roots.  What a project that was, just to dig a hole.

        And no, it wasn’t a Mickey Mantle card, I had already traded that for…  I can’t remember, but it must have been something good.  I guess it could have been Megan the hamster we buried.  Gee, my memory has more holes in it than the backyard ever did.

 

 

 

 

 

 zc

 

 

 

 

 

One Day in the Village

 

There was gentle guitar music coming from one of the villas.  The aroma of fresh bread drifted along the cobblestones. An old bicycle, exhausted from a journey, rested against the tailor’s front window, where a dusty fedora perched a little tilted upon some foreign-looking mannequin.

        A cat, belonging to no one in particular lay in the center of the street, as if daring someone to pass her way, her tail flicking, almost keeping time with the guitar.

 

 

        Little did anyone know that if Giovanni's keys had not fallen from his pocket on that day, he – upon his Vespa, would have driven over the cat’s tail, causing the cat to yell, which would have startled the old woman just leaving the bakery, who would have dropped her baguette, which would have rolled downhill to the sidewalk café.  There, a tourist, we’ll call Betty, would have picked it up and thinking it was her lucky day, taken a bite, whereupon a tiny bit of gravel would have dislodged her filling, resulting in enough discomfort that Betty immediately began searching for a dentist.  However, not being able to read Italian or speak it she just kept walking, right out of this story and into some other story already in progress.

 

        To this day we still don’t know what became of her.

 

 

 

The End

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was the last shot on Larry's camera

 

With not much effort on their part...

 

What might a person expect to see

inside a box of raisins

but wrinkles standing side-by-side

and smelling just like raisins

 

Wouldn’t you think

Before they’re boxed

They’d iron every one,

To look their best

We’d be impressed

It would be so much fun.

 

 

 

zc

Sealing Wax

 

Missing within the electronic system of communication are the finishing details.  Those little touches that lend personality and feeling.  Emails shall forever lay cold and impersonal behind the glass partition.   As if a sneeze guard is required.

 

 

zc

 

Words to Travel by

 

    

The art is seeing beyond the worn luggage and ignoring the scent of despair.   It is understanding and selecting the proper footwear and when resting on any bench, never allow your fingers to wander to the underside.  

 

 

 

    zc

Here, hold my beer...

 

The fuse was short

the match was lit

there was no time

be rid of it

 

In later years

what could he say

his fingers went

the other way.

 

 

Erick Came Back

 

In attendance were five doctors, two registered nurses, one professor and a borrowed stenographer from the courthouse.  There were two running tape recorders and one video camera.  Nothing was left to chance. 

Doctor Reynolds spoke first.  He introduced himself for the recordings and then pointed to Erick to begin.

“State your name and then just tells us your story in your own words.” 

Erick looked nervous but cleared his throat and began.

“It was like someone had flipped a switch, like a light switch and suddenly everything about me shut off.  My vision went black, I could hear nothing, not even the internal chatter that seems to always be talking in my head.   There was nothing.  I didn’t feel myself fall.  There was no sensation at all.  Everything simply shut off.  I don’t know how else to describe it.” 

“Doctor Edwards, here.  You realize you’re asking us to believe you were dead and then came back?”

Erick, “I know it sounds strange, but that’s what happened.  I didn’t see any light, like people say.  There was no tunnel or sound of any kind.  And besides, you guys are the ones that pronounced me dead.”

Doctor Edwards: “So there were no dead friends or relatives there to greet you?”

Erick, “I can tell you this much, and don’t ask me how I know, but I do.  There are things that happen here, that we never see.” 

Doctor Reynolds: “Like what, Erick?” 

Erick, “You see a helicopter flying along and that’s all we see.  Don’t ask me how, but I know for a fact that whenever the blades of the helicopter pass through a cloud, the blades are like the beaters on a mixer, but instead of sending mashed potatoes all over the kitchen, it sends the clouds spinning and splattering off, flying in all directions.  I have no idea why something like that is invisible to us, but it is.”

STOP TAPE

Professor Daniels,  "Erick, are you asking us to believe that, although you were without sight, hearing or anything, you witnessed this?"

Erick, "No, I'm telling you that somehow I received memories, as if I had experienced them myself.  I have no idea how it was done, and it isn't just the helicopter thing either.  I have a flood of memories that are extremely real to me and yet somehow unbelievable, many defying logic."

Doctor Emmett's,  "Professor, why did you have them stop the tape?"

Daniels, "Gentleman, I seriously doubt you want to risk any of this information getting out to the general public.  Especially if any of this is true.  Can you imagine the insane reaction people would have?  We need to think about this, and in the meantime - keep a lid on it."

zc