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what he didn’t know before it was too late
sounds
watching the northern lights
prompt- what he didn’t know before it was too late.
Let’s contemplate that sentence for a moment, a good “moment” for that is a good part of life. As a fellow said, life is lived forward, but only understood backward. No wonder the ancient Greeks saw time as a rowboat, with your back to the future, swirling past you. Enjoy the bubbles and ripples, for what else can you do?
“Why don’t you—?”
“I tried,” he said bleakly, “now I know my limitations.” How well I know that sentence. A fellow said, “For a brief dark space he was an editor, but prefers to believe it never happened.” It was dark alright, since he had to refer to himself in the third person.
A reporter once asked Harry Truman whether his father was a success, since his father failed to know such a lot of things in his grey life. Harry’s eyes threw sparks as he replied, “He raised a son to be president of the United States and that is success enough for any man!”
Someone once said that old folks in retirement community measure each other by the status of their possessions. That would be sad, to go through life never knowing that there are things beyond possessions. Some of my best friends have white hair, as I do, and no, status from stuff is not one of our concerns.
We all want status but as we approach the glide path to landing in a hot place or a cloudy place, there are concerns that transcend what I own. This I know, before it’s too late.
… …
prompt- sounds
I like sounds. I once did a poem on the difference in sounds from before and after the Martian apocalypse. As I recall, I said that in the new economy one no longer heard the friendly drone of small fixed wing pleasure aircraft. Also, the Martian ecological warfare had destroyed the sound of morning birdsong.
I suppose in our culture the various apocalypses remind us to savour the world we have: lawnmowers, chainsaws, the whump, whump, whump of far away freight trains on the way to another world, amidst the lonely sound of the whistle, a long drawn out sound giving us time to mourn we know not what. Where I live I don’t hear crickets but I hear frogs, a warm sound indicating that no one is passing by the pond, leaving our green cousins undisturbed.
At night the bats are silent, owls silent unless they call as they fly, “Who cooks for you?” Trees swish, caught in a passing rush of wind. I like the sound of rushing cars, meaning a good economy, meaning good neighbours on their way to pools of light and friendly warmth, an oasis in the dark.
My place is not an oasis. I instinctively keep the lights off as I smoke on my porch. Crazy, as I have no one to fear in this our peaceful realm.
.. …
prompt- watching the northern lights
as I try for some humour
Hi mom, it’s me, writing from beautiful downtown Tuktoyaktuk. I’m writing this standing up because all our igloos melted from the reactor meltdown. Nothing much ever happens around here.
The caribou come and they go. Oh, there’s one thing: Tourist ships dock, as it were, and we liven things up by having a betting pool on which of the women will put out …feed for the penguins.
Also, the bolder fellows will ask a lady to go to the hill for watching the Northern lights.
The Germans always compliment us on our Canadian reactors—I guess it says to do so in their tourist guides: The little Canadians like to be seen as a progressive country. I tell them we have satellites in orbit too, but we don’t launch them ourselves.
And we have had astronauts at the space station too, as part of international friendliness: Don’t say Canadians only go up out of charity, not unless you are trying to comfort the Germans for feeling left out. The poor Germans don’t have any caribou either. But at least all our medical equipment is from Germany—something to comfort them if they get hospitalized.
Except they would probably stay on the ship, as it probably has a better sick bay than the one we have in an old quonset hut. Have you heard the news? We are upgrading our hospital to an Atco trailer. The mayor will be cutting a ribbon. If I photo bomb the occasion I will send you a photo.
Please send socks.
Your son,
Toby.
…
…
Sean Crawford
Grimly eager for a couple days off in February
When snow is forecast
2022
Music: I see it’s the 50th anniversary of the tragic Bloody Sunday. A black and white music video that matches my glum January feelings is Invisible Sun by Sting and The Police. (Link to page of lyrics and video) The song was banned, so you might not know it.
… …
Song rifle note: from Sting’s first spoken line, an “armalite” is the civilian weapon the US army made into their toy-like M-16.
The big rifles in the video—Oh, how I miss them!—are the same ones seen in old Doctor Who episodes, used in many British Commonwealth countries since the mid 1950’s, built by Fabrique Nationale (du arms de guerre) in Belgium.
The FN’s were heavy, weighing 8 pounds empty, ten pounds fully loaded (9 kilograms) with a 20 round hefty magazine. (A bullet could penetrate three railway ties) With practise, the weapons were handled easily, like a a basketball player becoming easy with a ball. In very thick forest I would keep one hand free by gripping the weapon by the wooden forestock, near the point of balance, but such a proud skill was not common.
During the FN’s field testing, Canadian troops said they liked the swing-up carrying handle, so that was retained, but then soldiers were discouraged from ever using their handle, partly because they needed to learn “weapons handling.” Troops also asked for the “gas regulator” (to adjust recoil-auto reloading) to go from “analog,” as we would say today, to “digital.” In other words, they asked that it be made to “go click,” and so notches and a click-spring were added.
I am reminded of civilians wanting their word processor keyboards to click, and how an inventor’s click-less door knob—he had a nursery—just wouldn’t sell.
Blog note: My stats show that someone referred to this post on Facebook: How the heck did that happen?
