I yam what I yam

I was born a musician. When I was little, my mom dressed me in musicians’ clothes. I played with musical toys. I learned how to play piano, guitar, and the recorder. I even sang a bit. I was a happy little musician, my parents’ pride and joy. 

But as I grew older, I started feeling a wee bit off key and slightly out of tune. I kept that feeling to myself because I thought it would go away. But it didn’t, and I didn’t know what to do. I mean, how do you tell the people who love you, and that you love, that you don’t feel like the person they think you are?

Deep inside, I felt like a writer. Oh, I did all the things musicians are supposed to do — practice, memorize songs, get paid for playing gigs at the local church or saloon — but in secret, I wrote poetry, fiction, science fiction, and superhero adventure stories starring The Kangaroo-Man. I didn’t tell anybody, of course. I kept it all hidden. And year after year I felt emptier and emptier inside.

My high school English teacher knew. Well, she suspected. She kept wanting to give me A’s in her creative writing class, but I begged her to give me B’s or C’s so my friends and parents wouldn’t become suspicious. And she did. She was the first person who supported the person I was turning into — The Writer.

That’s when I started wearing writer’s clothes. Nothing fancy. Sort of Hemingway-ish. Aran sweater. Boots. Fishing hat. I put them on when I got home from school. Paraded around my bedroom thinking it was easier to hook a story when you were dressed properly. Took them straight off before my parents got home.

Fast forward to adulthood. Do you know how awkward I felt being a member of a music teacher association and attending their conventions? I felt I shouldn’t be there. I was a fraud. But I knew if I joined the association for writers and snuck into their conventions, they’d throw me out quicker than a synonym for quick. And what would I say to my wife? Oh, sorry? I wasn’t paying attention and took the wrong plane to the wrong city to the wrong convention?

And then the writer inside me came out one day when I absentmindedly put a pencil behind my left ear.

“Hey, get rid of that thing,” I heard someone say. “Do you want people to think you’re some kind of nut-job writer or something?”

I blew a gasket like a Ford without oil. You see, some of us are born dyed-in-the-wool musicians. Some true-blue writers. But life is played out on a beautiful spectrum where we all have a little bit of both inside us. There’s nothing wrong about being somewhere in the middle, or being sympathetic to those who feel they are stuck in the wrong body and only want to be who they feel like inside. Once I figured that out, the true me came into focus, and life hasn’t been the same since. 

The first thing my true friends said was, “What took you so long? We’ve known you were a writer for years.” It took my family a little longer to come around, but now they’re happy that I’m a happier person. 

Yes, I still hear people whispering behind my back, “It’s just weird. He was a musician and now he’s a writer. It’s just not natural.” I hear them, but I ignore them and remember these wise words from the great philosopher, Popeye the Sailor Man:

 

“I yam what I yam, and that’s all that I yam.”

Haiku from me to you

Cool Texas mornings

beg me to forget about

fiery Texas nights.

*  *  *

It rained yesterday
soft and gentle like feathers
floating on the wind.

*  *  *

Cats are long liquid
purring from counter to floor
not making a splash.

*  *  *

The yard needs mowing
I keep saying to myself,
but I don't listen.

*  *  *

Sometimes poor Haiku
hits the spot much better than
fancy-pants rhyming.

It might be time to put away the blankets

It's 80 F at 9 a.m. on a Tuesday morning.
Yep, I don't think we'll need these anymore.

 

Putting on your best protest

         "A wagon train to Mars"

More than likely, old-ish people like me won’t have the gumption to be the first pioneers to carve out a trailhead to Mars. It’ll be those young astro-folk who will do all the heavy lifting. And once they’ve tamed the Red Planet and created the first frontier settlements, only then will the grandfolks be sent for, us riding in the back of the rocket ship, sitting in our rocketing chairs and wondering how long it takes before a good crop of sweet potatoes is ready to be harvested out of a half-meter patch of Martian soil.

I know I said we old-ish people wouldn’t have the “gumption” to immigrate to Mars, but what I should have said was we wouldn’t have the desire to go there. Why would you want to live in a place that can’t grow trees? No trees, no squirrels. I guess you could transplant some squirrels into a Martian pseudo-forest to make the place seem homey, but they’d be as dumb as Martian dirt, living in their tiny condos and eating vitamin-fortified squirrel kibble.

They say with enough money, humanity could turn Mars into a paradise. I say (I’m just repeating what somebody else said) — I say if we have enough money to turn Mars into a paradise, why not spend that money making Earth a paradise? We all want the same thing, don’t we? Clean air, clean water, clean socks every Monday morning?

But sometimes, what we want is not what we get. That’s when you need to pull up your clean socks and put your shiniest “protest” on. Hate that we’re still addicted to fossil fuels? Horrified that gas prices are too high? Wish we could harvest some national forest lumber? Flabbergasted that anybody would even think about making national forest raccoons homeless? Then grab some poster board and markers, boldly write what’s troubling your mind, and head out to protest whatever you feel needs protesting. 

That’s what makes the United States great. I’m free to say I don’t like a thing, and you’re free to say you don’t like that I don’t like a thing. As long as your elbow doesn’t poke me in the eyeball, and my foot doesn’t collide with your shin, then everything’s good. Vive la America.

I was too young to protest the Vietnam War. The only thing I could protest at that time was having to take a lunchbox to school instead of getting to eat cafeteria food. If I’d owned an “Incredible Hulk” or “Evil Knievel” lunchbox, life would have been peachy. I had a red plaid lunchbox with a red plaid thermos which afforded me a red plaid “hit me now” target on my easy-to-hit red plaid nose.

Oh, I’ve been to a couple of organized protests in my time. Been dragged to them, actually. But I went. Stood next to people who felt the same way I did about an issue. Held up some signs. Made some new friends. Waved at passers-bye. Tried to make out if I just saw an obscene gesture thrown at me, or was that a thumbs up? Did that person driving by say “thank you,” or something slightly more colorful? It might be time for me to get my vision and hearing checked.

I wonder what Martians will someday want to protest? The exorbitant price of imported shrimp from the Gulf of Mexico? Slow WiFi? I won’t be there to tell because I’m staying put. I’d hate never getting to see a hawk dive on a field mouse; to pick and eat an apple straight from a tree; or to watch dandelion seeds scatter on a warm spring breeze.

The Three C's

In my house, we believe in learning the Three C's:

Catfish, Cornbread and Collards.

First come, first served

My mind wanders. And while it’s out wandering, it wonders. Who’s flying that plane that just passed over my house? Who’s out mowing their yard at 7:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning? Who’s going to clean the cat litter boxes?

Washing dishes by hand really sends my mind out for a hike. In the year I was born — 1962 — Judy Garland became the first woman to win Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards. Why was I thinking about Judy Garland? I was scrubbing the leftover enchilada casserole off a dinner plate, the combination of grease and dish soap formed a rainbow in the dishwater, Somewhere Over The Rainbow, Judy Garland, and there you have it.

Remember Hazel Johnson? She became the first African American woman to become a general in the U.S. Army. She was Chief of the Army Nurse Corps in 1979. My brother joined the Army in 1984. He drove tanks. He hurt his knee in 1986, got a medical discharge, and started working for American Airlines. Gen. Johnson retired from the army in 1984. They just missed each other. What a shame.

I was in the Air Force. In basic training, we learned about The Tuskegee Airmen, the first African American military pilots and support personnel to serve in the U.S. Armed Forces. I think about them every time that Vietnam-era Huey helicopter flies over my house. I drop my wash rag, run out through the front door in the hopes of catching a glimpse, and am so thankful I didn’t break a leg running down the front steps. Boy, that would be a bad day.

Gus Grajales was the first Mexican American I ever met who grew up in the Lower Rio Grand Valley. He lived in Harlingen, Texas, about 30 miles away from the Gulf of Mexico. I met him in college. He played trombone and was the funniest guy in band. Everybody loved Gus. He died a few days ago from cancer. We were the same age.

I can’t remember a time when chemotherapy wasn’t available in the fight against cancer. We can thank a lot of people for that discovery, including Min Chuiu Li, an immigrant from Shenyang, China. He was the first scientist to use chemotherapy to cure widely metastatic, malignant cancer. Unfortunately, the disease was just too much for my friend Gus. 

Nobody really knows who invented the first kitchen sink. It just developed throughout the ages. We started out drinking water from puddles, somebody invented the spoon, somebody’s mother thought it might be nice to clean it every now and then, and there you have it — a kitchen sink. Building and health codes soon followed, the Victorians stopped dumping their chamber pots into the streets, people started living longer, which brings us to the modern day where we hate the regulations that keep us healthy, so “Don’t tell me that I have to wash my hands before heading back to work. I’m not a pre-schooler.”

There’s no telling who will be the first person to walk on Mars. I just hope I’m still alive to see it; to be in awe once again of human ingenuity. But go there myself? No way. We’ve got “awe” covered right here on good old Mother Earth. Enough awe to last forever. Green grass, eagles circling on thermals, neighbors helping neighbors, snow, birthday parties, new discoveries, love. And let’s not forget our… hold on a minute.

No worries. Toby the Siamese had a King Snake cornered in the front yard. Pert near dropped a soapy dish trying to get out there and referee. But he had it covered. It was awesome. You’ll never see THAT up there on the Red Planet, no sir.