Friday morning

20 January 2017

— old bricks from our old home now made into a flower stand on our new patio.

Good Morning All,

I am just back from taking Johs to the airport. It took a mere 45 minutes to do the 73 kilometres (45 miles). Happily, the kids will be back for a week in late March or early April, by which time the house may look a bit more ship-shape.

Interesting article in today’s Boston Globe, which each morning I read electronically . The Girl Scouts of America will be marching in today’s Inauguration Parade. Quite a few people, including many present and former Girls Scouts, are angry about that. The article points out the GSA, unlike the BSA, is a very progressive organisation that supports liberal causes. It also works to help girls develop self-confidence and self-respect and generally fights for women’s rights. The angry people wonder why the GSA would want to support a genital-groper like Trump. The GSA applied for the parade permit back in September, suggesting they want to honor the office of the presidency (which they’ve been doing since 1917), rather than the moronic demagogue who will occupy the office.

I can’t make up my mind whether I want them to march or not. On the other hand, I shan’t be joining the sizable number of lunatic liberals calling for a cookie boycott.

Today comes the first of a dozen poems from The Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters. Each of these free-form poems is spoken by one of the people lying in the cemetery of Spoon River, a small town in Illinois. There are 212 of them in all, doctors, lawyers, farmers, poets, dentists, husbands and wives, teachers, shopkeepers, what you would find in a small town. Some of the characters summarize their own lives. Some describe a pivotal moment in their lives. Some gossip about their neighbors. Some confess to crimes and misdemeanors.

What you get as you move from character to character is a fascinating collage of small town life, as well as invitations deep into the human heart. My 11th grade English teacher, Miss Krastin, a saint in racing skates, lent me her copy. Not even The Catcher in the Rye so mesmerized me. I read with such excitement! Even today, if you get a few beers in me, I’ll get up on a table and recite a half dozen for 

you.

Go Well and Stay Well,

Bhekaron