If you were going back in time
it wouldn’t be to the day you got bit by a big dog, would it?
A quiet day in 1959 or ‘60.
They were all young guys and gals back then. The grown ups.
Cool crew cuts, Ohio 1950’s.
My uncle from Chicago was young, fit his belongings in the first Volkswagen we ever saw. Had a tiny oval rear window and the engine in the back. Strange. That was a head-scratcher. Eccentricity and freedom.
Our dad, a dad with four kids running,
grasshoppers leaping from blade to blade in the sun.
I remember the day I was bit by the dog. I was maybe three or four.
Kids gathered in a clump when Pinky the neighbor dog made his jump.
A little boy of three will reach for things to toss to play – but not the gnaw-bone of a beautiful Weimaraner.
Jaw bone to jaw bone Pink and me.
Big dog / little boy that’s how it was.
Pinky lunges for the jugular. Who can blame him?
There was a shady tree to tumble by. Chased by the dog.
-Or maybe the dog just nipped and jumped and didn’t follow. My memory is a jiggly camera.
But I imagine the dog’s bounding slow motion perfection.
Me, stumbling, a little boy in overalls tumbling.
Bounding and tumbling: such is life.
Looking back, the hills flatten out
into such little slopes.
My big hill wasn’t all that. How did we sled down that in winter?
But this day was in the days of corn on the cob and lightening bugs
and a big dog named Pinky and me on the run.
We were all so young and alive!
On the drive to the doctor, my little chin wrapped in a terry cloth towel, I guess they loaded me into the car quick- Pop was a medic in the army during the war – my mom’s younger brother, holding me still in the passenger’s seat while Pop drove fast.
I still have the scar 60 years later.
There it is. On the jaw line, inches from my throat. That must have been such a tiny measurement on a little boy of 3 or 4.
My uncle was there saving my little peanut of a life!
What happened next? Most of our lives happened after that.
Paint a picture of an apple tree in bloom, a circle of shade, a tumbling boy, a beautiful dog in mid-air. All the adults you ever knew were young. Show them smiling and waving, which they were. Call it my garden of life.
By all means go back. But come back soon. There’s more work to do.
jk
for herb pfeiffer
4/21/2018
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Ballad of Wolf Faced Eel
It’s been two years since my uncle passed. A brilliant man with an engineering skill for fixing things and a love of the arts and Japanese society.
While I’m waiting to write the serious thing about my uncle who sadly has passed away…
I’ll write about my friend Tibetan former monk who fixed the TV with a piece of string
Someone lost broke threw away or accidentally stole the remote for the wall- mounted tv in our office at work which has a hidden on/off switch very difficult to access and too far to walk to change stations
so former monk applied looped strong cord -simple string -to hidden recessed switch, measured amount of string to reach stolen comfortable plush ergonomic reclining executive office chair (where did monk get that?)
and tested cord with a slight pull to the left and voila cable channel advanced to next station.
Further devised a means – by a large loop behind ears to change the channel remotely by nodding his head.
“Working now” he informed me.
We watch favorite station Blue Planet between calls and shout when we see a creature we want to be reincarnated as.
“Wolf-faced eel!” I shouted.
He clapped with approval. Wolf-faced eel is actually an exquisitely prehistoric-looking fish that can eat spiny sea urchins.
“Bottle nosed dolphin-Big Brain!”
“Coral Reef”!
Other workers arrived and asked to watch “Judge Judy”. The monk nodded many, many times.
jk
4/6/18
thinking of you uncle obie
***
Tibetan monk innovation:
This is Tibet monk’s sound system” for his iPhone. The phone is inserted in center slot of the cardboard tube, upright for viewing screen, and the tiny speaker is amplified by the resonating tube. Two small push pins support the device on the table top. The paper cups are the speakers, and themselves add a bit of graphic design as well.
***
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My art history teacher encouraged my writing
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