Last week’s piece on Art ended on a grim note, so I surveyed my old Friday Free Fall writings for cheery childhood stuff. …We gather Friday mornings to have a “prompt,” of a word or phrase, then write swiftly, roughly, no parachute, no ‘do overs.’
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Prompt-the little people
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Some like it hot, some like it cold,
The little people are always here, shy not bold
They like to dance alone, they like their treasure gold
And they aren’t stopped by weather, hot or cold
They brush over snow on gossamer wings
Where we must stomp with snowshoes, as jingles ring
They like it when you whistle, they love it when you sing
So please don’t be afraid, and sing sing sing
The cold crisp air, and happy smell of brush
The warmth in stomach, after a breakfast of mush
They have felt it too, we are all the same
So share your song, as life is but a game.
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Prompt-happy childhood
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Somewhere, a boy and a teddy bear will always be playing, on the top of a hill in a wonderful glade…
No matter how dark and dreary, there’s always a place for magic in a child’s life. The worst the life, the more the need for fairy tales. Remember? The youngest sibling can still be lucky, be kind to those met along the way. Oil the gate hinge, feed the duck, help the little old lady, for thus people have helped fairies, unaware.
If only we had had captains beds, with drawers all the way to the ground. Instead, there was always room for the boogey man to hide. In my next life I’ll have a mirror to face the bed, a laser flashlight and a water pistol filled with holy water… When a child asks, “Are there monsters?” the right answer is, “None around here.”
But there’s a Piglet, and a Pooh, and an Eeyore, and not a single wicked witch or competitor lurks in the 100 acre wood. Only Kanga with her medicine, and Rabbit and his relations. That’s the childhood I remember. Never mind the replicants and the ghosts.
Childhood is sunbeams and drifting dust motes, and the moon being alive and friendly, and trees having personalities, and rocks reposing with their own opinions.
It was walking to school on a frosty morning wearing only a sweater that Grandma knit. It was apples fallen on the ground. It was picking a huge brown maple leaf on the way home, and holding it like a space ship, and slowly crumpling parts that vanished under onslaughts of disintegrator rays. No maple leaf ever survived. It was the awe of seeing nature’s honest-to-God helicopters: maple tree seeds.
It was knowing that Superman could have smashed through any bank in the United States, but he would not. Surely mercy and light would follow us through all of our days.
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prompt- a long list of priors
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Mary Elizabeth Magdalene was a fun loving girl. Too fun loving.
Her favourite show was The Flying Nun. As she had never seen an episode she had to make them up: There was the time the Nun flew right over the dragon and grabbed its treasure. The time the Nun flew over the bad king and pulled off his wig. The time the Nun flew to France and got a sunburn.
The kids lapped it up, for of course Mary got to leave the cloister to go teach the underprivileged children, in the shadow of the dark satanic mills. Maybe that was her plan. Maybe she just got too bored too easily.
“She gets too bored too easily,” said the prior of the Abbey.
“Yes sir,” said his secretary.
The abbey had suddenly said that as he stood looking out the window.
“And you don’t even have to ask who I mean.”
“No sir,” said the secretary, a thin man who had served a long list of priors.
“There she goes,” said the prior “off to that school of scandal, that much needed facility for munchkins… that garden of childish delights…”
The secretary raised his eyebrows, “Sir?”
“Now she’s got me talking like that. Suddenly, instead of pushing dusty ledgers, I’m playing with words. It’s all Mary’s doing.”
“Yes sir,” said the colourless secretary.
“And do you know what she’s doing now?”
The secretary raised a wrist, pretended to look at a non-existent wristwatch. “She’s skipping along the sidewalk, sir.”
“How did you know?”
“It’s her pattern. She walks the first month, then she skips , then she’s the singing nun, and you intervene, and she says it’s to praise the lord’s creations. Then you get mysteriously transferred and it all starts over again.”
“Why are you so immune and colourless?
“Because, sir, back in my cell I write gay zombie erotica.”
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Prompt- grandma on a ladder
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Grandma on a ladder by a reindeer
Swooshhhh!
That’s not how to spend your Halloween,
You might say it was a real good costume
But grandma really wants to vent her spleen
She was having a good time stringing jack-o-lanterns
Her grip on the ladder quite relaxed,
When some fool with a jetpack and a costume
Made her glad that she was wearing slacks
Now grandpa has the perfect excuse
To buy hydraulic cherry pickers and giraffes
And on Halloween he won’t dare wear his jet pack
He just looks like Gandalf with his staffs
Oh you can fly your jet pack over hades
Feeling safe that you are doing well
But anyone who costumes as a reindeer
Will be kicked by grandma straight to hell.
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Sean Crawford, comments can be cheery too,
In the grip of winter
December 2020
I’ve received my first Russian despicable comment. The saying goes, “Scratch a Russian, find a Tartar.” Before the hordes descend upon me, as anyone any suggestions?
What I did for my last post was call them spam, one, by one, by one. This continued long after my own comment giving dear readers the Citizen Kane of music videos. After linking such a cinema masterpiece, “Counting to Four,” there was no point in posting my contempt after more Soviet comments. But believe me, there was a horde of them. Comments?
Update: I noticed a prominent anti-spam feature on my dashboard, perhaps suddenly activated by spam. I clicked on it. it’s called akismet and it is free with WordPress.
For my previous blog, people had to jump through hoops to comment, so I guess I have been unaware of how much Russian spam was out there.