America puts its best foot forward

America puts its best foot forward

fiction
edward w pritchard

Less I appear unpatriotic, for I love my Country let me praise it.

I have traveled to a few places and met the sophisticated citizens of Paris, France and Madrid, Spain and London, England. All three believe their culture to be superior to ours here in America.

True or false- I know not. I can no longer afford to go back there to recheck. However this I know. Although we may lose the edge in some areas, or have never had it in others compared to those Europeans; in one mundane category America far excels their achievements.

I talk of beer. America now makes the most drinkable beer in the world in my opinion. Speaking only of taste and enjoyment, without snob appeal, American beer companies make and distribute the finest low cost beers in the world. Cold and drinkable, readily available and affordable American light beers and modestly priced premiums are the world's best.

At least that's what I think and although I stand ready to be convinced otherwise, I doubt that I change my opinion.

revolution 2 American style

revolution 2 American style

fiction
edward w pritchard

Charles Dickens in A Tale Of two Cities writes of the aristocracy going about their depravities and routines as innocent wood and trees grew in France or far away Norway later to be used for guillotines to behead those same nobles.

In America in 2010 are there dusty contracts of adhesion,- mortgages,- health insurance master contracts,- or tax codes that whisper the same warnings the trees and wood did back in 1788 France?

Our majority of citizenry sinks back and falls behind. The gap between rich and poor grows in America, although both groups are losing relative position to the rest of the world. Is the situation sustainable. Will everyone peacefully and passively fall lower and lose what they once had?

The frontier is closed and the Indians have no more land for us to appropriate. Where will the growth come from to move America forward? Answer unknown, but its probably not educating everybody poorly and saddling them with borrowed tuition debt and fretting that we fall behind in math and science.

Little Bell makes a discovery

Little Bell makes a discovery

fiction
edward w pritchard

Little Bell's grandfather let her play at the back of the farm along the Cuyahoga River. Her friend Jamie who was nine always brought his pocket knife along for their protection, which worried her because she was afraid he would fall on it and cut off his finger. Today Bell was alone and was studying the terrain along the back of the farm leading up to the Cuyahoga River.

Her Grandfather had told her that the Iroquois Indians used to come to this part of Ohio to fight with other tribes. They called the River here Cuyahoga because it coiled and furled around and around. Her Dad called it a meandering River.

Bell was drawing and had a pad and a couple of colored pencils. Both pad and pencils were put aside for now for Bell had made a discovery. There was an indentation in the brush and weeds that lead up to the River and Bell had followed the indentation and trail through the fields and brush and eventually it came out on the main road through Clinton, Ohio which is where her Grandfather lived. She deduced that animals must have came down the path she discovered to drink at the River a long time ago and people must have used the animal paths to build the original roads through this area. Unlike the River which meandered and swerved the animal path and main road were very straight through here. Bell ran back to the farm to tell her Grandfather about her discovery.

Later at School when the class had a picture to draw of themselves the teacher had called her Dad because her picture was the only one where her face didn't fill the entire front of the paper the children were given to draw on. Little Bell had drawn herself as a small part of a wooded landscape. The landscape was colored and there was a river at one end and a road at the other. Her Grandfather put the picture on his refrigerator and kept it there for a long time until the magnets holding it up got ruined.
end

Hunter Green

Hunter Green

fiction
edward w pritchard

We framed all the doors and windows in hunter green paint and planned on repainting the whole world that way.

We had a hunter green van and kept beautiful children in there and tried to keep them from growing up.

We bought stocks and gold and silver and watched them closely for they were the future.

We kept up all the insurances for it guarded us against life's risk and we were confident that we were safe and secure.

We lead the whole world and we felt a little sorry for them because they lagged behind us and didn't know how to keep up.

One day the houses weren't homes any more and the vans were no longer stylish. The gold and silver belonged to someone else and the stocks were viperous. The insurance worked fine but there was now more insurance than value to insure. The children grew up and despite their massive potential we saw their lives would be hard and we suffered for them.

The rest of the world felt a little sorry for us because they knew these things all along. The rest of the world had learned them long ago.

We in America had felt that for the last twelve thousand years events had happened one after the other to bring about the blossoming of our culture in about 1995. It took about fifteen years but time and circumstance caught up with America and now every day we slip back a little and we don't understand why.

a fight at high school

a fight at high school

fiction
edward w pritchard

A fight at the high schools beckons the students into the halls in droves. Maybe something exciting will happen. Maybe there will be some action.

They haven't learned to mind their own business and they don't realize the danger to themselves. They become part of a mob. If nothing goes down they slink back into the room and stare out the window the rest of the day. They wonder how their teacher got so much like an old woman. Preaching about safety and worried about cops.

Buddhist detective-preview

Buddhist detective-preview

fiction
edward w pritchard

Patel was the only Buddhist on the force. He was not the only detective from India however. More by chance, he came to become partners with Bhai, a Zoroastrian, who also happened to be a detective in America.

Patel and Bhai despite their philosophical differences made good partners and excellent detectives; working on the East side of Cleveland, down Euclid area. Bhai drove and Patel jumped out of the car first in emergencies. Neither was violent by American standards but they always got the job done. They had a lot of fun too as they went about their days. Lunch was always challenging.
end part 1

bliss

bliss

fiction
edward w pritchard

Bliss comes occasionally.

When we are no longer children there are too many obstacles that keep bliss from happening. Most of the obstacles are of our own making or our perceptions and reactions to the external world. The world is large and keeps a-comin so we must become guarded and political for protection of our self. Doing so we become fragile at times which keeps bliss from flowing through our being.

Sometimes bliss is rekindled by exposure to another. A new baby, a suffering friend or an intimate connection. Briefly all to briefly bliss is there. Once, twice, blissfulness exists; a little later gone, and we want to reconnect with our bliss. When we sat alone as a little child and listened to the wind high up, before we knew the wind knocked down houses and trees, we felt blissful for an hour or two.

Now bliss flows like lava once in a while into us. It's not far off as nirvana or heaven. It's a physical state on our inside granted to us from I don't know who.

dreams

dreams

fiction
edward w pritchard

Why does the hidden detective of our subconscious wait forty years to say his piece in our dreams. Couldn't he have spoken to us when the information was relevant.

We dream about someone we have not seen or thought of in forty years. Then we glimpse a significant part of that person's character that we were never consciously aware of delivered in the middle of the nightly melodrama our dreams have become.

Afterward we spend the rest of the day trying to figure out what is the significance of that revealed information to us here and now.
end

fraternal twins

fraternal twins

fiction
edward w pritchard

Dad had died and Myron, my fraternal twin was in the army and I went to college about four hundred miles away. That's when Mom must have had the bomb shelter built. It was under the house and the only entrance was through the glass garden niche. We called it the niche because Myron and me use to play and play in there when we were children. The back wall of the garden niche was brick and I was tearing it down last month and I found the hidden door leading to the bomb shelter under the house. The rest of the garden niche was glass and Mom spent a lot of time back there when we were kids working on her flowers.

I was tearing down the old garden building when I found the underground passage to the bomb shelter, a large room down under the large house we grew up in. The only entrance was through the green house which is what the glass garden niche really was.

I had called Myron my Brother to get permission to tear down the green house last month because he is half owner of the house that I have lived in since Mom died five years ago. We are selling the family home. After I graduated from college with my degree I moved back home. I never knew about the bomb shelter and Mom never once mentioned it. I lived in the house for six years with my Mother after she must have had that bomb shelter built; and she never mentioned the bomb shelter to me even once.

The green house was airy and bright when we were kids and Myron and I loved to play in it. That's why I called Myron for permission to tear it down, it was our niche, as we called it, our special place.

Myron isn't upset with Mom for not telling us. I am. Myron was her only son, me her only daughter. What would possess a woman to build an expensive brick and cement room under the house she lived in for twenty six years and not tell any one at all about it? I have asked all my relatives in the last month since I found the entrance to the bomb shelter under the house; and no one knew about it. Mom never mentioned it.

The bomb shelter is too big and elaborate for a bomb shelter and who needs a bomb shelter now a days anyway? It's a throw back to fears and secrecy of the 1950's in America when my parents were born.

I am trying to sell the old house that Myron my fraternal twin and I grew up in, so we can split the money and now I find out that it has a bomb shelter under it that my Mother had built that she never told anyone about. The only entrance to the dark bomb shelter is through the glass green house my brother and I loved to play in when we were kids. I don't under stand my Mother. I feel like she concealed something from me. Myron tells me to let it be.

discrete at times

discrete at times

fiction
edward w pritchard

Lisete was from the American South and had that distinct accent. It was what attracted me to her initially.

When we were together she was shy and talked softly. Her movements were graceful but slow and she seemed to stay in one place when we were together.

In private Lisete was like no-one I ever knew before. When we were out Lisete was discrete at times.
end

a day in a soldier's life

a day in a soldier's life

fiction
edward w pritchard

No soldier should have to put up with what I endured that day with Myron.

Twenty minutes before battle and Myron pulled off his left boot and started entertaining us with his sock playing talking hand puppet. I listened to twenty minutes of that. I noticed Myron neatly fold the sock and carefully place it in his pocket when the shelling started. Myron got serious when the shelling started.
end

wildflowers

wildflowers

fiction
edward w pritchard

Wildflowers come in and out of fashion. In the 1960's we were flower children and beautiful girls picked flowers and twirled around dervish style in a joyous manner.
Throughout human history, during wars, after a large brutal battle, local townspeople bury the dead, of both armies, and gently drop flowers on the graves.

Our ancient ancestors would have been intimately acquainted with wild flowers. They would walk through them while hunting or gathering and sleep on or near them at night. Perhaps they collected sweet smelling flowers to freshen their camps.

Ring around the Rosie pocket full of posies. During the Black Death, the great plague of 1348, well to do Europeans lined their pockets with flowers. They served as a nosegays to be pulled out and put on their face to ward of the odor of the dead. Fully 30 to 40 per cent of the citizenry of Europe died of the black death from 1348 to 1350. In time the posies in the pocket were clutched during the black death to ward off invisible unknown infections. What terror must have been felt by those living at the time of the plague.

An escape to the country, with its clean and pure air, and beautiful wildflowers was the wish of most during the black death. Without warning or a known cause the Black Death devastated Western Europe and marshaled in monumental changes to the existing social order.

At the time of the Black Death in England, then enjoying relative prosperity, the average life span was forty years. What terror must have been felt by those living at time of the Black Death, a more religious age than ours, trying to escape the horror of the biological Armageddon sent by God. Lining ones pockets with posies, trying to ward off the invisible forces of a brutal early death. Helpless against the invisible wrath of god.

Pick a wildflower and place it to the memory of our ancestors who lived with the terror of the Black Death.

The new waitress

The new waitress

fiction
edward w pritchard

Rachel never had a job outside the home until she was seventy-five years old. Today was her first day at her new job as a waitress.

Out of high school Rachel had married had children and lead a moderately privileged
life. In her day women didn't usually work. They did keep a nice home, promote the welfare of the family and act as good citizens of the community.

Rachel was nervous as she took the first few orders. She was small and neatly dressed. She looked like someone who should be a volunteer tour guide at a large museum in New York City or San Fransisco. Her clothes on inspection were expensive and the type that never went out of style for a lady.

Writing carefully she tried to accurately enter the food order into the new hand held computing device that she was not use to using. Spending a little extra time, it being her first day, she went about obtaining the lunch orders for the patients in the cubicles doing their four hour chemo therapy at the large cancer unit of the local hospital.

Volunteers, even volunteer new waitresses are angels of mercy.

the good policeman

the good policeman

fiction
edward w pritchard

I was just watching, observing. A baby girl was learning how to talk and the very young Grandfather was fascinated and brimming with desire to share the miracle with the world. He told the policeman he had four grandchildren. I heard that part.

The baby girl's Mother had left her with her Father while she went from McDonald's, where I was here, to Target, to get a wedding gift for her friend. I heard that.

The crowd at the play area at McDonald's all had their own children of various ages. They politely listened to the baby girl saying her few new words. The baby had a lot of personality. She noticed the other kids had their shoes off and wanted to take hers off too.

The policeman had his uniform on but I don't think he was on duty. He just happened to be there at McDonald's. He spent about five minutes listening to the baby talk and drew me into the conversation, introducing me and the grandfather, neither of who he knew five minutes ago.

About two years later I was substitute teaching at an inner city school in my home town. I was in a class room on a break, a planning period, and I heard someone lecturing a kid in the hall who was cutting class and didn't have a pass. The adult lecturer was direct with the kid but caring and kind also.

When the adult lecturing the kid walked past the door of the room I was in, I saw it was the same policeman, in uniform, from the McDonald's two years ago. Later I walked up to him in the halls and said hello.

brother's rivalry

brother's rivalry

fiction
edward w pritchard

I have had a difficult couple of years. Numerous set-backs, too jarring to list have beset my being.

I'll be at my Brother Melvin's in a couple of hours. It's our annual golf outing over at the Firestone country Club; near the old neighborhood where we grew up. I am driving back from my home in Toledo, Ohio. My home is an apartment now, since the divorce; one of those setbacks mentioned earlier.

What a downer. Melvin had changed jobs this year. I knew that. Now he is a call room supervisor for a firm from India. He has adopted subtle changes to his philosophy of life; one of which he doesn't keep score at golf anymore.

I always look forward to playing golf against my older brother each year, now more than ever. Sometimes I win, but not often for Melvin was on the golf team in high school and shoots low 70's, always. Now he quit keeping score.

I told him he ruined my enjoyment of the game. He drives about 300 yards from tee and then won't keep score. He looked at me and smiled and invited me to our favorite hamburger joint; still around since we were kids.

He asked me while we waited in his car for the burgers if I thought I was stuck in the past.

Just because I want to keep score at golf? It's how its done. He used to spend ten minutes before a putt just to beat me. I can't figure it out.

Robert hits a bar

Robert hits a bar

fiction
edward w pritchard

Looking for comfort and companionship in all the wrong places Robert hit a bar Friday night after work. He had been sitting alone always alone when he realized that all the women in the bar were here to poison a man or two. Smiling prettily, seductive and alluring most were here to poison and kill to stir up a little excitement in their lives. Only Robert deduced this, and as he sat alone the bar grew sinister to him and he usually moved off in a corner alone to observe. Eventually the bar seemed haunted and dangerous to Robert worrying if his waitress was in on the plot. Moving around the bar became intriguing and terrifying, and the clientele became endowed with hidden allied powers.

Robert was always glad to get out of those bars alive. The women were Medea like to Robert, scary now, like a Lucretia Borgia, threatening to poison him if he entered into communication with them or established contact. Rushing to the sanctuary of his home base, Robert made plans for further adventures.
end

Ulysses paints the town

Ulysses paints the town

fiction
edward w pritchard

When Ulysses hit the Greek bars over on campus he sometimes had trouble fitting in properly in the end. Sure he could clear a bar in a fight, at least he could give a legendary account of himself around the bigger guys; or he could always attract a couple of blond beauties but he always seemed to be pensive by the end of the night. Whatever it was, wasn't enough for him, not satisfying spiritually so to speak. He always was looking for the next adventure, the next high, more life, less routine.

When Ulysses entered a Greek bar on campus, the guys always wanted him to play the chug a lug drinking game. Shoot down shot after shot, maybe thirty to start the evening, in a race to be the best, and then take it from there. Sometimes Ulysses would miscount on purpose to win, because he could be a little deceitful, but the Greeks admired him for that. After the drinks, next Ulysses would always fight with one of the football players. Strong of shoulder he quickly subdued his foe.

Next a couple of bimbos would track him down leading to the next fight. He was always, fighting over a beautiful woman, but one with no loyalty to just him, which he wanted. The Greek sorority girls were fickle at that time in their lives and they liked to flirt and pit one of the guys in those bars against the other. Ulysses was always good for a quick, small riot if someone cut in on the girl he was talking at, while she winked on the sly at both parties.

After the drink turned his mood from adventurous to melancholy, Ulysses would think of Penelope far away. Sometimes he would even head out to find his love, far far away. Then he would get into a thousand adventures on the way. Sad inside from it all Ulysses knew that if he ever did get home he wouldn't probably be happy anyway, looking over his shoulder toward his past exploits and yearning for the next adventure. That's why his fellow Greeks on campus were eventually usually at odds with Ulysses, he never quite seemed at peace with the Greek way of life.

Ulysses liked it best when him and his buds were a crew, a team off on some adventure. Cunning in battle with another frat house or fooling one of the professors on campus. Ulysses was there on campus for ten years and then it took him another ten years to get back home. His mates had by then moved on and settled down but sometimes he would call them and want to sail off and do something heroic. Usually they didn't take his call, just let it go to voice-mail. They would see him later at the fraternity five year reunions.

snakes galore

snakes galore

fiction
edward w pritchard

It started with an old green wood boat sunk in the canal. We found it,hauled it ashore and drug it two miles along the back of every bodies backyards' some people nice some people mean and cranky about having kids going through their yards. We finally got it home. Home was my friend's house who lived on the canal. Since it was dark we made plans to meet early and repair our new boat. It was ours by salvage.

We were hard workers. We often built things of wood, huts,or tree houses and sheds but repairing a waterlogged boat with plywood was beyond us. We coated the lopsided plywood repairs with glob after glob of various boat repair goops, let it dry a few hours, and took off on our maiden voyage. Over a mile east up the canal and then on to the lake.

The boat drank water as we went and we spent most of our time bailing and tipping the heavy, very heavy old tub. Just before the lake, after about three hours to make a thirty minute trip [ by canoe or in a decent row boat] we pulled into the haunted house. It was the original farm house in our neighborhood, with the crazy owner, built before the five hundred castle homes we inhabited were built. We hauled our selves up on the back yard of the high old farmhouse, too tired to be properly scared of the farmer, and laid in the warm sun near the cement root cellar, built for storage of fruit and things in a small hill over a hundred years ago.

We were both in very good shape. We played little league baseball, pee wee football and ran or rode our bikes every where we went. The old boat had done us in, however. It seemed alive and to complain and resist our every effort to row it, repair it or treat it like a boat.

The sun was very warm and I went into a deep reverie sleeping on the sloping bank. My tired muscles relaxed and I was in a peaceful place, joyfully out of the wet old boat.

I woke up suddenly to a surge of adrenaline and a heightened awareness. Something was very wrong. I was surrounded by snakes. Hundreds, of snakes really. The bank was covered with them, many coiled together. They were gardeners, non poisonous but jumping up and fleeing we didn't know that then.

We got half way home with the boat and abandoned it in the last piece of undeveloped woods along the canal. The next day another friend, came by with his hood cousin, five years older than us; and claimed ownership of the old boat. We didn't resist or enlighten him when he said they were going to repair it.

They had some of a special compound to repair the leaks he said.
end

an unpleasant surprise

an unpleasant surprise

fiction
edward w pritchard

I was in charge and I sent Paulie home to find my Dad. The Johnson twins objected and moaned around but I stared them down and they knew I was right. Whatever they thought about Paulie's skills at baseball or fighting he was the only one of us who could run the four and a half miles home without stopping. Besides I didn't tell the Johnson's or Burt but Paulie's Mother was the only one who wouldn't butt in and ruin the rest of our adventure. Myself included, when our Mother's heard we were going to dig out the skeleton of a bear out of the dried up creek bed they would have about 200 objections at least, one of which was us catching the black plague from the old skeleton.

I knew my Dad would get here in a hurry. He took his bosses Mr. Tucker's jeep and came cross the Kepler farm to right where the river swerved before it went into the State park. We are on private land however; I already had asked permission to dig of Mr. Kepler who was a client of my Mom's. Her a real estate broker and him the owner of a large piece of land, where we found the bear skeleton sticking out of the water because of the drought around here.

Mr. Tucker came down after my Dad arrived and brought a bunch of camping equipment so we are spending the night. Tomorrow we are going to excavate the skeleton. My Dad who is a hunter confirmed Paulie's original diagnosis that it was a bear, and a big one. Bears have been gone from here for over a hundred years so it's a mystery where it came from. Mr Tucker called the Park service and they thanked us but a bear skeleton, not on Park land anyway, is not newsworthy and they said for us just to dig it out ourselves, as a learning experience for us boys they said.

Supper was nice out under the stars. Mr. Kepler brought food his wife had made and she is real old but a super cook. Our Dad's had beer and we were allowed to stay up as late as we wanted. The adults were like kids themselves I guess, excited for tomorrow to dig up the bear and not supervising us, treating us like equals; it was nice to be with my Dad like that.

I feel kind of sick for the last day or two and it is not because we start back to school next Tuesday; seventh grade for me. The bear skeleton was interesting and most of the parts were there in the dried up river bank. Some men from the FBI over in Akron came over after we dug it up. There was also a skeleton of a boy about my age near the bear. My Dad said matter of factly he thought the bear was dragging the body of the boy he had killed and got caught in quicksand. The bear must have sunk and died in the quicksand and the boy must have been already dead. No one is sure how old the skeletons are so the FBI and sheriff here in town are going to investigate.

I feel kind of queasy thinking that me or one of my friends could die like that.
end

Last meal

Last Meal

fiction
edward w pritchard

The last meal was a sort of walking fantasy among food lovers. What would your have if you would be dead tomorrow. Mom's spaghetti, a three quarter pound double chubby burger with avocado, double cheese and mayonnaise, calories be dammed, or a Pepsi and fries with a friend.

Our cousin Len was a food lover and rather than have the last meal he treated us to it. Stealthily over the last year of his life, Len had secretly got each of us to confide our perfect last meal. He did it in a way that none of us suspected what he was doing; despite the fact that Len had cancer.

Molly, who is my sister had Carrot cake and macaroni and cheese, I had spaghetti with cream cheese, balsamic vinegar, and lots and lots of salt. Sharon my always dieting wife had a twelve ounce porterhouse steak.

Len had died yesterday and Mr. Waters met us at the funeral and drove us over to his restaurant after the service and before the cemetery ritual.

Good old Len. The cold wind at the cemetery seemed friendly to me that day.

a fire is process but the wood is life itself

a fire is process but the wood is life itself

fiction
edward w pritchard

A fire is a process but the wood is life itself. A man sparks the fire originally but then rather than destroy the wood, the wood is transformed by the fire. The wood becomes ash which with time gestates with the ground to create new life.

Once the man has sparked the fire he then watches the Mother transform and twenty years later he is still bound to his children. The fire flairs and rages singeing the tree of the Father's soul year in and out until he at at last returns to the ash from which he came, previously gestated by his Mother and sparked by his Father. His children continue the process forward.

And the Mother, of his children? She remains bounded to him despite the ravages of storms or idiosyncrasies of their characters. She nurtured new life and she is the conduit through which life continues.

Laura where are you my dear

Laura where are you my dear

fiction
edward w pritchard

Petrarch the early Italian humanist, the first "modern man" wrote sonnets in a form he perfected to his platonic love Laura. Some claim she was a fictional character, an allegorical symphony composed from Petrarch's strong Catholic faith and emerging secular humanism and his brimming head full of new ideas. Petrarch writing near the time of Dante obviously draws comparisons between his Laura and Dante's Beatrice. There are differences but both writings involve platonic love, Dante the more ethereal over time, Petrarch more personal.

If a real woman, Petrarch first saw his Laura in a church service, and if he contacted her she rightly reminded him she was married and couldn't proceed further. She might have been Laura de Noves of Avignon, the wife of Count Hugues de Sade, ancestor of the infamous Marquis de Sade, who may have had his own real or imaginary Justine.

In any event Laura, if De Noves died of the plague in 1348, as did Petrarch later. Laura is loved from afar by Petrarch and he writes numerous sonnets to her using the abba abba- etc form [my summary]. The poems although concerning Laura actually cover a wide range of Petrarch's psychological states, hence the first modern label.

An imaginary woman of unchanging virtue and beauty is a nice prop to have around. For Dante and Petrarch their imaginary relationships never evolve and there is no Medea like character they must confront later. Their muse remains pure and ethereal and inspires their grandest art.

Laura where are you my dear.

suffering or anxiety

suffering or anxiety

fiction
edward w pritchard

There's a nice party of those you love and you are very happy. However, after, you are anxious, fretting that those who are close to you will be unable to return or be present next time.

Likewise, one of your loved ones is missing and you suffer that they are not at the party and are fearful for their safety in their absence.

Suffering is caused by desires. In this case our desire for the safety and closeness of those we love. Impermanence is the state of all things in the universe.

I get it Mr. Buddha, you were wise. Now that I have read and heard what you said, intellectualized and thought on what you said, experienced what you said in the sad corners of my heart, what do I do about it. I have now properly internalized the sensations and understand the temporalality of apparent reality.

I suffer, I am anxious, I desire for things to be otherwise than what they are.

What next? Where do I go from here?

business and Karma

business and Karma

fiction
edward w pritchard

Businesses are held to the highest standard, in their relationships with their employees, especially when the employees are in trouble; surprisingly a higher standard than businesses are held to with their customers tribulations. Customers may move to another supplier or source of a need easily but an employee is connected at a dependent level with his employer in his time of need or trouble. How a business responds to their employees in a time of need presents a good picture of the real culture and integrity of a company.

Karmic actions follow a businesses conduct in such circumstances. Unfortunately for the company, changing philosophies later or getting a new President will not absolve them from past misdeeds. Karma, cause and effect will dog them, and later the retribution will be revealed to a careful observer.

retribution

retribution

fiction
edward w pritchard

see obsidian hunters- same author [ stories content not related]


I just read that Obsidian hunter story by the author here and sometimes I think he just makes these things up.

Let me tell you about a real dangerous job that I do every day and it's a job that I created to fill a need in the marketplace right here and now in the Fall of 2010.

I walk up to someone stealthily and throw a pie in their face. The banks and government lenders hire me to hit someone in the face with a pie who is hopelessly behind on their student loans.

I know, I know sometimes they can't help it-circumstances-or, bit off more than they could chew, so to speak. But there is a contract to pay it back. Interest is due. They should have thought about that before they bought the expensive education. Personally I don't think education is a practical investment any more; but what do I know. I just hit people in the face with pies for a living.

I have crunched celebrities, actresses and even a politician in my work; in addition to the usual Doctors and singers and struggling salesmen. Ok here goes, what do I call my business- what else- Squashing your Education,-- Education is the imperfect panacea you know, but we find that out later.
end

obsidian hunters

obsidian hunters

fiction
edward w pritchard

Finding the valuable obsidian was not really the difficult part. Of course it was a long trek across dangerous terrain with wild animals and inclement weather. The real danger was coming back after we got the precious obsidian for the making of knife blades, spear points, and use as reflecting surfaces [mirrors]. The obsidian is very valuable and many fierce hunters, more cruel and cunning than any wild animal, lay in wait to rob and kill us once we have toiled to gather the scarce cargo.

I go from tribe to tribe, civilization to civilization, here on the central plateau [ now Turkey}. The year is 4500 BC on your dating system. I recruit solitary and odd persons and cast offs from each society to work with me to journey to the mountainous regions and painstakingly obtain a leather pouch full of obsidian. I tell their very few loved ones of the potential gathers I recruit the hard facts. Their family member or clansman may not return. Say your goodbyes now, for the journey is treacherous. However the reward is great. As long as we find obsidian and start back toward the trading points everyone who left the mountain area gets paid, and handsomely. Those who die coming back, I pay the relatives a full share; for I want to be welcome the next time I come to their homeland to recruit new obsidian hunters.

We are an odd lot and I am one strange person. I like my misfits who I recruit. People unable to stick around a camp and tend a fire or watch the wheat come out of the ground. We are the last great explorers. Every day we put our life on the line to provide the villages the latest technology. If you know of someone not fitting in send them my way and I will make an obsidian hunter of them.

Each human must take some risks if they are to make their way in an indifferent world. Travel far away from friends and family who love you, across mountains, through storms and earthquakes, find a handful of valuable mineral wealth, and then trade it, sell it, display what you have found; you will be a success, you will have made the grade and passed your quest. Travel far but return to those you love, wandering pilgrim.
end

what happened to the path

what happened to the path

fiction
edward w pritchard

what happened to the path

wandering and searching for familiar ground

twists and turns to avoid past sins and mistakes

tacking forward this way and that

follow the sun and the stars in your lonely journey

towards what,

will be revealed when you get there

somewhere down in Hartville, Ohio

somewhere down in Hartville, Ohio

fiction
edward w pritchard

Somewhere down in Hartville Ohio there's a spot where an entire wagon, mules or oxen, and a couple of people disappeared by sinking into quicksand back in the early 1800's. Once an up and coming suburb, Hartville is now a comfortable little town with a lot of amateur horse farms and riding mowers.

Were the entire family riding on that wagon that sunk into the quicksand. Were they new to the area or experienced pioneers and farmers. Did the Father frantically try to save the family? Was the Mother able to escape with the Father's sacrifice with one of the Children. Do their relatives still live in the area and still talk about the occurrence?

210 years ago is not all that long ago. 2 million years ago our ancestors grouped together. 500,000 our ancestors made fires for comfort and protection. Thirty thousand years ago our ancestors mourned for their dead and drew pictures on cave walls. Twelve thousand years ago our ancestors traveled from one end of the earth to the other. Six thousand years ago our ancestors founded cities and began to organize for production and war. Six hundred years the first "modern" thinking and emoting men were living.

How long would it take a wagon to sink in quicksand and why did it have to happen. How many of the towns people went to the funeral and was there a write up in the newspaper? How would the world have changed if those people and animals did not sunk in the quicksand?

the rich section of town

the rich section of town

fiction
edward w pritchard

My History professor at State College said the reason the rich moved to the West of our town's downtown was the old Street car line ran that way and couldn't make it up the hills out there; so naturally the wealthy moved just past where everybody else could travel too. As technology of Street Car design improved the rich areas moved further and further West until automobiles came along and then the wealthy moved way West to the suburbs. At least that's what the rich did until the nineteen fifties when our town began a slow demise and the rich disappeared, except for fund raising and anonymous donations.

Sitting in traffic at the corner of Market, the original east-west road I noticed that the Myers family had an elaborate mausoleum at the old cemetery about four miles from the downtown. Right at the base of that once obstreperous series of hills
inaccessible to the first streetcars and common folk was the finest cemetery in our city. The long forgotten Myers family built a fortress like Mausoleum for the protection and proclamation of their family name in death at that cemetery at the base of that small hill.

Sitting in traffic there, waiting for the traffic light I wonder what became of the Myers family in our town?

living in the moment

living in the moment

fiction
edward w pritchard

As soon as Mr.Summers Ford truck stopped the boys were living in the moment. Scattering in a few minutes they had explored and charted the camp ground and River bank for their merit badge projects and curiosity. Tents were up and a fire was started and Mr. Cox the teacher was still deep in thought about his new boss, the woman Principal who had been coming into his class once a week for the last two months to observe and take notes, and now and then make a suggestion. Twice teacher of the year Mr. Cox didn't like her intervention.

Mr. Rodrigez was an insurance salesman who didn't like his job and wasn't doing well at it. While the boys got their fishing gear ready for tomorrow morning he looked at his electronic schedule for Monday a couple of times. Mr. Owens worked at the local hardware, business was bad and he was afraid that after Christmas he would be laid off again; his wife wouldn't like that.

Billy Rodrigez and Roger Town were lost for two hours after supper and a massive manhunt of the five adults located them about dark. Sitting around a worn Indian blanket, light a hissing Coleman lantern, and bright half moon, and planet Jupiter in the East sky; the five men relaxed, sipped Coors light beer topped with Napoleon brandy and bluffed and folded at Poker until about one AM the mosquitoes drove them to their sleeping bags.

neighborhood bar

neighborhood bar

fiction
edwaard w pritchard

Fannie Brown's neighborhood bar only had a couple of rules. No fighting, no knives, that kind of stuff, but a soft rule, more of a custom was no goodbyes. If you met someone who you hadn't seen for a while you bought them a top shelf type drink, brandy or vsop cognac maybe. Related to that custom was when you met someone there, who you used to know, you jumped back in without a lot of explanation or recriminations while at the bar tonight; and things were good and simple again for a while. Frannie called that beginners mind meeting.

Half way through a pleasant meeting people would disappear, for a variety of reasons and then you would just drift back to your place, a little sad true, but with soft waves of recovery fortifying your journey home.
end

handicapped walker

handicapped walker

fiction
edward w pritchard

after the halls are cleared of purposeful rushing parties

the handicapped individual slowly is dragged two shuffled small steps at a time behind their mechanical walker

help or encourage them with respect and promote their dignity

so they will be there with their fortitude should you be destined to meet them again in your exigency

Mrs. Meechem keeps teaching

Mrs. Meechem keeps teaching

fiction
edward w pritchard

After her thirty years were up as a teacher Mrs. Meechem just kept teaching. She didn't retire and she didn't kick back. She didn't negotiate and politicize any longer to get easy classes to teach or good kids to fill her rooms. Mrs. Meechem just took it as it came. In time Mrs. Meechem the teacher stopped dreading going to work and Mrs. Meechem stopped comparing one student to the other and one fellow teacher to the other and as she became less judgmental and premeditated about her job she became closer to the students, connected to her fellow teachers and surprisingly she drew the approval of the administration.

Not this, not that, no longer judging, her actions completly open, no longer caring about reward , offering without waiting for conformation of receipt, Mrs. Meechem went about her days.

lost soul

lost soul

fiction
edward w pritchard

Be there a soul that isn't lost?

Judging always judging improperly seeing everything

Trapped in Karma, with it's impeccable memory

Prosperous as Midas, slowly starving to death

Who will go to the airport to pick up a lost soul when returning from nowhere?

This I, transitory and illusionary, not this not that, dolefully stops not for hitchhiker's

too much good is very bad

too much good is very bad

fiction
edward w pritchard

The nuances of politics and a life at court has always been enough for me to be happy. Wealth and power leave that to others, I like the intrigue, the backstabbing, the collapse of friendship, affiliation and self respect that being near the centers of power causes.

Crete, is my fourth such assignment. You call it Minoan civilization, there in the future. It's difficult to describe to you because of language differences between our cultures and time differences, of course; I live 3800 years into your past. Still I think you will get my point, beauty is the lust of the eye. My eyes betray me and are keeping me from doing what I like most and my duty as a diplomat.

I am from a Sumerian city, in your time dissolved into a piece of forgotten desert but in my time rich, important and powerful. My city sends emissaries to Egypt, where I served at court, and other such places; I have seen much.

Now I am ruined. My talent as a diplomat shrivels. My eyes betray me. I can't concentrate on my duties.

When I sit at the palace near Knossos, during a long meeting, fete, or party I am unable to concentrate for obsessing on these Cretan women. They are no different than a hundred others I have been near. At court the women are beautiful, always, so what. It never came to my attention or bothered me before.

Here at Crete the women wear a full skirt, very elaborate and curled hair. It's the bare breasts that intrigues me. They sit around that way, here at the palace as they go about their day. Of course it's not like that in my home Country. Hence the problem. I won't go into further detail, but you see the problem. Too much good is very bad.

the end of the line

the end of the line

fiction
edward w pritchard

At the end of the line we are standing at the small station maybe with a bag or two. The train rumbles on its way, full of passengers, going on with the run.

We stand at the station not sure where to go and slowly our realization comes that it's the end of the line. Maybe we watch the train head off down the tracks before we reach for our bags. Maybe we look one last time up the tracks to where the train came from.

Everyone likes to listen to the sound of train whistle for as long as it's audible when it's the end of the line. Straining the senses to hear the sound of the whistle moaning into the perpetuity.

the ascetic

the ascetic

fiction
edward w pritchard

It took a while to adjust but I have been living for seven months in a three by three foot space. For 32 years I lived in a space the breadth the entire country of India.

I have been adapting to my new environment. However I have decided to allow my self more room for I have decided to follow the middle way.
end

chasing his helot-part 2

chasing his helot-part 2

fiction
edward w pritchard


see part 1

I never thought I would be using all my training in running to chase my Helot [slave] Lyn. I have been training myself to run, on top of the usual tortures and calisthenics we Spartan trainees must do. I have been training myself to run to catch a maiden, Hermione. She is twelve, a year old than me and her peplem [skirt] is always short and split in the back and I can't quit thinking of her. We have a saying in Sparta, if you can't outrun your bride [ girlfriend] not only will you never catch her but she won't respect you.

Alas I am not chasing Hermione, I am chasing Lyn my slave, He is my friend but my Father has ordered me to kill him. I have been running and running after him. Lyn taught me to walk, then taught me to hold a sword, then he coached me daily to survive my training to be a Spartan warrior, taken from home and family at age 7. Now I must kill him, I don't want to and in reality he is a brutal adversary. Only his honor kept him a slave, for he was a captured foe, and feels honor bound not to escape. If he would want to escape, during the last 11 years he watched over me he could have escaped a hundred times. Now if I catch him and he should want to he could easily kill me with his sword; although I am no slouch, mastering what he taught me, but Lyn is a master at warfare.

end part2

the history teacher who taught Sunday school

the history teacher who taught Sunday school

fiction
edward w pritchard

Pastor Zimmerman always glanced down the east wing hall before he went to begin the church service and today there was a small crowd of adults standing by the door of the seventh grade Sunday school class. Mr. Rhodes must be talking about something interesting today.

Pastor Zimmerman gently pushed to the opening of the classroom and looked at all the maps on the chalkboards. Ancient Ur, Basra and then modern Baghdad; the map was no more than a big circle, modern Iraq was not drawn to scale nor were the geographical features consistent. The boys however were hanging on their teachers every word.

Abraham was a Chaldean, before he went to the land of the bible. Christians had been reading about ancient Ur in the bible for two thousand years before it's remnants were rediscovered in the twentieth century.

Walking back to deliver his sermon Pastor Zimmerman heard Ronnie Risk ask about where the Muslims came from originally.
end

Dave's quality time with his daughter

Dave's quality time with his daughter

fiction
edward w pritchard

Barely five, it was difficult for Megan to go on Sunday afternoons with her Father who was divorced from her Mother. When he dropped her back at 6PM it was a rush to get things ready for school tomorrow and transition from Dad's to Mom's house.

"Daddy" said Megan to her Father,Dave driving her after this weeks visit, while she sat in the kids seat in the rear, "Can we not go to the zoo again"

"Why pumpkin pie"

"Zoo's are not humane"

"Do you feel like you are in a zoo"

"No, Dad, I just don't want to see animals treated like that", " that's all

Dave glanced in the mirror at the back seat and saw his ex-wife's eyes reflected in his daughter's and said " I never liked zoos either Megan"

"Let's go to the food court next time and have fava beans again" said Megan

"Sure pumpkin" said Dad

Sorting carefully Megan began to organize her papers for school tomorrow.
end

when they came

when they came

fiction
edward w pritchard

for Frantz Kafka

when they came my neighbors stout iron cyclone fence didn't stop them

when they came two flights of stairs didn't slow them

when they came a dead bolt lock and and solid oak door didn't deter them

when they came uncle's Smith and Wesson didn't faze them

when they came my wife's pleadings didn't help me

when they took me my arguments didn't interest them

when i looked through the cyclone fence up two flights of stairs through the broken down oak door at my sobbing wife her tears didn't comfort me as they took me away

jupiter, the god of the sky

Jupiter, the god of the sky

fiction
edward w pritchard

An old Mathew Brady photo of the twisted stark dead in the American Civil War is shown on TV. Silently, illuminating part of the night sky appears to be the planet Jupiter in the old Brady picture. Jupiter appears the same as now to the naked eye in the Brady picture and although peaking out as brighter than any distant star and dominant among our planets it appears insignificant to our eye staring down on the dead of a forgotten field of battle.

Jupiter was the god of the sky to the ancient Romans. Jupiter in Brady's picture looks sad and pensive as it stares down an hour after dark on a lonely American battle field in 1862.

chasing his helot

chasing his helot

fiction
edward w pritchard

A Spartan Father couldn't enjoy peace and quiet and wouldn't let anyone else either.
Kit's Father was more strict then normal toward his 11 year old Son because he fretted Kit didn't fit the mold required of young men of Sparta, here in Greece in 489bc.

Yes, I am Kit and my Father has ordered me to kill my friend Lyn, my slave technically, although we call them helots, unfortunates kept and made poor by our system. I am well trained to kill since age six; I have been tortured and starved to teach me to be manly. It hasn't worked all too well; for I am reluctant to kill my friend even though duty bound to find, pursue and kill him.
end part 1

opening sentence thanks to un-named and forgotten Corinthian delegate to Sparta-circa 420BC [ he was speaking of Athens but the points the same]

preview-the couple part 1+2

Thursday, August 19, 2010
preview-the couple-part 1
preview-the couple-part 2

fiction
edward w pritchard

draft 1
Most people, even if they are not married, have someone who functions as their partner, and when I worked as a night manager at a hotel I met an interesting such couple.

He wore white shoes, gold jewelry, expensive clothes and drove a bloated American car. Polite and refined he was the consummate salesman; always on, a little too charming, sometimes, and attentive to the names and peculiarities of those about him; even those of us who worked at the hotel. He stayed extended stay at the hotel and kept odd hours coming in often at 5AM, glib and fresh, and then tipping with twenty dollar bills, real money in those days. He was very popular with the hotel staff and he insisted that we all call him by his first name although he was nearly sixty, and he called us all by our first names as well which he always remembered. I was the only employee who he called Mr. and then my last name, although he did often call me green shoes, implying that I was like a New York stock broker, a little stuffy for a nineteen year old but he trusted me and often gave me little jobs to do of a confidential and furtive nature.

Primarily the jobs consisted of helping to pass the appropriate message to his in town girl friends, of which there were many, since he was generous with his money. Beautiful each, but past their prime and aging in our small unimportant city. He was undependable-
- new--09/11/2010-

end preview -part 1
start part 2

[was undependable] and the women of our town liked it. At least at first, chasing him and waiting changed their tolerance but by then he moved on for once he had something he no longer esteemed it.

He often used the hotel lobby as his waiting room, he stayed in a small single with no frills; and if I was working he had to butter me up a little to use the lobby because I disliked distractions while I worked. At least until I got the books in balance for I worried like a Mother over an only child with my work balancing the books and closing out yesterday's business at midnight today until I was dead certain that none of the hotel clerks had ingeniously but incompetently done something to cause me to spend the next 8 hours frantically searching the NCR tape for a twenty four cent error in the beverage debit column.

The woman waiting for him in the lobby was not one of his usual girls but rushing in for work at 10:59PM I knew she was waiting for him. I ignored her and actually forgot she was there, she was so non-intrusive, rare for his friends. But, looking up across the couches and chairs by chance I noticed her look, at 11:30 exactly, at a slip of paper she was clutching. She had waited while I was here one half hour and one minute, then walked shyly to the desk to talk to me; using my Mr. -- name she asked me to help her find him; worried that he was missing.
end part 2

those who can't rule

those who can't rule

fiction
edward w pritchard

Can't rule your house
change the world

Can't rule yourself
change God

Can't rule nature
change the facts

can't rule your money
change the rules

Facts, facts facts

Facts, facts facts

fiction
edward w pritchard

Into the world
lets see what they say
about my project
facts, facts, facts
another plan of mine killed by a fact
my theories are always dashed by facts
No wonder I never listen

to Paul McCartney

to Paul McCartney

fiction
edward w pritchard

It is not the money
and you have done your time on the stage I know
Friends gone, sad to remember
but we were friends to
in our minds
you helped us to stop being so cynical
we took a piece of you probabally true
but one more Love song would be appreciated
or two
Let things be
Ok
I'll try that

the band grew distant

the band grew distant

fiction
edward w pritchard

Once we played in the band and others jostled to hear and to see.
Marching far up over the hill
the music is barely heard
look at your legs and see if you still wear the striped pants
does your head still wear the high hat?
The music was sweet while it lasted
it sinks, waves of noise that come and go
concentrate on the crunch of your feet in the gravel
struggling up over the hill

the usual lamentations

the usual lamentations

fiction
edward w pritchard

It's time to get started. Startled from sleep, pursued by dreams. Moan the usual lamentations and plan life's distractions from memory and suffering.

It feels distantly familiar as if I have done it before.

Two women musicans compared

Two women musicians compared

fiction
edward w pritchard


Jung Lin performs Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody #2 [ see u tube} with beauty, grace and precision. The performance is incandescently enjoyable to anyone familiar with the piece. While this critic denies his expertise to judge such a complicated piece there seemed to be few if any performance mistakes by Miss Linn to the ear of this reviewer; and it seemed a spirited performance comparable to the classic presentation by Horwitz [1953}.

Jung Lin as a performer is in her twenties, an Asian American, is a beautiful young woman, and that beauty does not detract but enhances the performance with the zealous movements of her arms and hands. The style and faithful conforming to Liszt original piece were noted and appreciated by this classical music lover.

Of course the primary accolades for the Hungarian Rhapsody #2 go to Liszt but Miss Linn who is also a composer presented an honest arrangement of Liszt' masterpiece and it bears repeating that despite advances in recording technology, viewing a live production, albeit on u tube is an exhilarating, incomparable experience.

Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton is best known for her original recording of Hound Dog, later covered by Elvis Presley. Her most original and moving piece of blues music is Ball and Chain written and recorded by her but again another singer, that time Janis Jopin, recorded the hit version of her song.

The lyrics to ball and chain unfold as a mournful digression into the song writer's pain and suffering over her treatment at the hands of her lover and as the listener concludes life itself. The song, lyrics and Big Mama's voice are perfectly matched for the presentation.

Working as a solo song writer Mama Thornton has written the consummate blues song and it is the finest blues song recorded by a woman in this critic's opinion.

Willie Mae Thornton's work on Ball and Chain is significant primarily because she has recorded and sung her own composition. One hopes we will hear more of the composing and recording of Miss Linn so we may someday be privileged to hear her entire opus.

From Adolph to Richard with admiration--the power of music

From Adolph to Richard with admiration-the power of music

fiction
edward w pritchard

Vienna was not kind to Adolph Hitler[1889-1945]. His solace while there was the opera and in particular the works of Richard Wagner[1813-1883]. Hitler lived in Vienna 1905 to 1913 being rejected for Art school twice there, living an existence on the margins of poverty; spending several years as a near homeless vagrant.

During that time his joy was to see the opera's of German nationalist Wagner. Standing in the back in the "penny seats" Hitler and his one artistic friend, August Kubizek saw many of Wagner's works performed; and much later when he came to power Hitler surprised others by being able to recite Wagner's lyrics and music verbatim.

Late in life Hitler called Wagner his only forerunner. Historians and music lovers argue over Wagner's anti Semiticm. Should Wagner be judged by the universal genius of his music, or by the totality of his complete art [ gesamtkunstwerke]. Two of Wagner's opera's in particular influenced Hitler in a profound, life changing way. "Prelude to Reizi" is an opera by Wagner about an ancient Roman Tribute's rise and fall. After seeing the opera, a moved and stunned Hitler told his friend Kubizek he heard the mandate to lead the Germanic peoples from servitude to freedom. Later Hitler often had Prelude to Reinzi played at the intensely choreographed and orchestrated Nazi campaign rally's. The second Opera by Wagner to profoundly move Hitler was "Parsifal" an opera with themes of the need for racial purity.

While writing Mien Kampf in prison between the world wars in 1923 Hitler listened to Wagner's music extensively. Also 1923, Hitler visited Bayreuth to Wagner's home, met his widow and became close to his son's and their children. Many historians call Hitler the messiah of Wagner's Germanic nationalism and anti semiticm. Wagner's home was later a "pilgrimage" for many Nazi leaders.

Hitler as an eight year old boy sang in the church choir and it's said he then wanted to be a priest. Before that however Hitler as a child was obsessed with and fixated on war. Later he passionately wanted to be an artist and painter. Discouraged he wanted to be an architect. While in Vienna working as a free lance post card painter, Hitler convinced his musically trained friend Kubizek to help him write an opera, that was never finished.

Vienna had a large middle class and esteemed the values of it's strong Jewish community of merchants, landlords and bankers. Hitler was at the bottom of that food chain in Vienna and in Mien Kampf he says his anti-Semiticm started in Vienna. He said before he only saw Jews as a religious group and did not realize what he described as their real nature.

On March 19, 1938 Hitler returned to Vienna as head of the mighty German army to reunite Austria and Germany in the Anschluss. Despite one's feelings toward Hitler we can image his smugness at returning to the city to cheering crowds where he had failed so miserably as a young man. Doubtless many of the City leaders and merchants were there to greet him that day. Hitler would no doubt be humming a piece from a Wagner opera.

Wagner was a genius, musical innovator, famous for his leitmotifs, and stirring music. Was the man who composed the Bridal Chorus from Lohengrin, known to us as the wedding march "Here Comes the Bride" the originators of Hitler's atrocities? Can the Artist be responsible for the ends his inspiration and works causes? Wagner was controversial in his lifetime and remains so today for his anti semiticm and links to Hitler. His music however is celebrated at the Bayreuth festival to large crowds and his opera's are still popular.

What's the responsibility the creative artist bears for the deeds his works inspire or arouse?

selfless

selfless

fiction
edward w pritchard

you can't soar with no wings
you can't run with no endurance
you can't understand with no reason
you can't sympathize with no heart

you can reach with desire
you can run with will
you can think with experience
you can be happy for anther's happiness with gratitude

these blues here

these blues here

fiction
edward w pritchard

in the style of Jack Dupree, with admiration

These blues here is for them honey's
sixteen or fourteen
mocking and deriding the young men
who study and resist
sacrificing to make something of themselves later

These blues here is for them damsels
seventeen or so
after deriding the young men who study and resist
they chase them gangsters and bad-boys
who are dangerously aloof and scoff at all the rules

These blues here is for them madam's
any age will do
running with players
ending with a baby or two
stuck to take care of them alone

These blues here is for them dames
24 to the day
swearing at the government
cause they don't give them their due
telling their girls to hate men

These blues here is for the sad mademoiselles
30 and tired and confused
borrowing and borrowing to go back to school
elusively trying to develop a trade
working two crummy jobs
sacrificing to make things better for their kids

These blues here is for those women
age unimportant
complaining about their friends who are men
tearing him down, belittle and raising their eyes
feeling superior but unhappy too
disgusted because he ain't the same anymore

These blues here are for those females
taking care of business
watching their grandchildren
training the boys to be gentlemen
protecting the girls and teaching values
taking them to church even on Wednesday night

These blues is for those ladies
old enough to know the score
teach those who are younger
morality and spirituality
whether they want to know or not

Thursday night football

Thursday night football

fiction
edward w pritchard

It can't be. Fifty million for an offensive guard"s compensation package. I am sure he's talented. One in million maybe.

One twisted ankle or hurt shoulder and he's traded away from the championship team to our local team, the also ran's.

We believe a lot of received wisdom about money. One is that's in the American Economy there is no cap on opportunity. If one person makes their-self valuable, and someone will pay them plenty, no one else is hurt by it and there's money a plenty for everyone.

But fifty million for an offensive guard? What if there's only so much money and what if money is real and the received wisdom that there's no cap on opportunity is a myth.

Who is hurt if an offensive guard is paid fifty million dollars?

the terrorist who lived in the project

the terrorist who lived in the project

fiction
edward w pritchard

The terrorist who lived in the project was planted there by his superiors under deep cover to learn the lay of the land in an American City for future vagaries. It was the ideal place to hide, for other than the local police, no-one took notice of the inhabitants of the projects in America.

Tu the terrorist was required to lead a typical American life, for the station of the assignment, and so he took on the persona and habits of a dweller in a project. He was required to get a job, and enter the world of the working poor. He also had a slew of bills and problems for to keep the role authentic, his boss required him to have the normal American worries and trepidations, caused by poverty and anxiety over that poverty.

Tu's job was not a good one and although very intelligent and high functioning he had difficulty with it. He was an assistant manager at the Dollar Store and worked over 55 hours per week for minimum wage and no benefits. To protect his deep cover, Tu's boss required him to keep health insurance, car insurance, keep his old car repaired and running and furnish his apartment as typical for a project dweller. Tu found himself renting furniture from the rent a center, buying a car from the buy here pay here, and financing various minimum insurance coverages. Despite his hard work Tu was unable to balance his budget and was in constant trouble with his supervisor in the terrorist group, who was unable to understand from afar why his employee Tu, who earned over $442 per week in America was unable to make ends meet. The supervisor came to believe that Tu had succumbed to the decadence of America and was not a good terrorist.

One day after a long day at work, Tu was sitting on a very small porch behind his apartment when the four year old neighbor girl, who Tu had come to like and look out for came over to show him the shoes her Mother had just bought her. Tu had to watch his affiliations in America for secrecy involving his job, but, he had allowed himself one small friendship; with the child next door, but not her Mother, a poor single Mother in America. The shoes the girl showed him were imported of course and were a knock off of an open heeled sandal commonly worn in Tu's home country. Tu knew the knockoff shoe to be very popular in America, from his work as an assistant manager at the dollar store. Properly admiring the shoes for his little friend, the innocent little girl matter of factly told Tu she liked the shoes but had settled for the blue pair rather than the girl's pink she wanted, because the pink were more expensive.

After that day Tu requested a transfer to another County to do deep cover work. The real reason for the transfer request; the blue shoes the little girl had were $1.99 at the dollar store, nearby where he worked, and the pink shoes, for girls, were more-$2.49.

Tu told his supervisor only that he could no longer work in America. The supervisor assumed Tu was feeling guilty for succumbing to the American decadent lifestyle and the supervisor assumed that Tu was feeling chagrined for being unable to live on $442 dollars per week.
end

The President who had perfect children

The President who had perfect children

fiction
edward w pritchard

The sitting President had perfect children, they were far from grown, so he didn't know about that yet, and his wife was a lot of help.

He had a lot of trouble understanding the rest of us. He was a high achiever, early riser, and a man who could organize and get things done. Self made and from modest circumstances he overcame obstacles to rise to the top.

Why were we always complaining. We didn't help ourselves, needed direction and mollycoddling and never seemed to know the score.

He couldn't be straight with us concerning our deficiencies, his advisers wouldn't let him.

So we waited and watched for leadership, vision and guidance.

The President waited too, dancing his time on the stage.

16 inning baseball game

16 inning baseball game

fiction
edward w pritchard

Did it really matter which of the last place baseball teams won or lost?

Of course. Now the score is officially noted, adjustments can be. Next time the outcome may be different.

Rest tired muscles, formulate a new plan, hope for a different outcome. Tomorrow's another day.

toleration

toleration

fiction
edward w pritchard

we are not that different
oh, i am sad for them

starting

starting

fiction
edward w pritchard


who will carry the trash to the curb?

half a league forward
twenty thousand fathoms below

midnight detains us
unable to start
or continue
trapped in the fetters of our mind

peaceful and serene in slumber
we hear the trash truck rumble by
dodging the early risers initiating their day and a life

interpetations on the good samaritan

interpretations on the good Samaritan

fiction
edward w pritchard

The injured Jewish traveler is a part of ourselves in need of rescue. Our spiritual self is laying at the side of the road bleeding and we walk away pursuing our own interests. Be we Chinese, Muslim or agnostic its much easier to grapple with our enemies than confront ourselves. We struggle to keep the world's approval by grasping and succeeding but a hollow exists inside that only we feel.

lamentation

lamentation

fiction

Lord,
you have mercifully returned my sight
you have gently found me some reason
you have granted me some relief from hostility
you awarded me some tolerance
you sent me gentle sleep
please guide my course
please direct my gaze

character flaws

character flaws

fiction
edward w pritchard

We do more harm with our character flaws than our sins. Oh God, must we stomp on someone's joy in spite of our intentions.

Remember the pleasant rushing others did to fit a new dream into their world. It's not the gently stalking au boudoir but the careful surveying of the hearth to accommodate a new need that's missed most.

Beatrice had the look

Beatrice had the look

fiction
edward w pritchard

Beatrice had the look. Walking as an eight year old not on a runway in Milan but on the crowded streets of Florence she captured Dante's imagination and inspired a million future lovers through his promotion of courtly love. Dante seldom comments on her physical appearance preferring to keep it mystical, about her emerald eyes and calling her his lord who came to him in his dreams. At their second meeting when she was eighteen and he nineteen, she greets him briefly and decorously and inspires eventually the Divine Comedy one of the seminal works in World literature. By age twenty four Beatrice is dead, leaving her husband, not Dante, to grieve, but Dante to glorify her perhaps as his Muse forever through his writing.

There's a small solemn chapel in Florence where he first clapped his eyes on her and her influence has been significant. More than a woman but a little less than a goddess.

gone but not forgotten, sadly silent- minimal version

gone but not forgotten, sadly silent- minimal version

fiction
edward w pritchard

see version 1- sept

memories shadow vaporously appears
gone,
sadly silent
solidly material
far removed

so confining

so confining

fiction
edward w pritchard

It wasn't a closet or an attic that the baby and the sixteen year old Mother were kept in, just a second floor bedroom. A Father, but not a husband, gone, by convention they were hid away. Not that long really by deep time- only-seven years. Stay in all day and then at night they could move about, maybe outside, we are not sure of that. Not really brutal or cruel but so confining. No-one's fault really.

The rest of us, the descendants, affected or effected now and then, maybe here and there, depending on that elusive brain chemistry or caused by something or other, explanation depending on one's philosophy of such matters. Evidenced by a little paranoia or anxiety, communicated by watch out for the neighbors or just be normal. Some of us repeated the warnings to offspring and others, hopefully some forgot or didn't pass it on.

No one's fault really just so confining.

intellectual jousting with a four year old

intellectual jousting with a four year old

fiction
edward w pritchard

I have read maybe 20,000 books stored in my memory as a muddled ball. Hampered by nihilism, age and experience.

She four nearly five innocent but aware, we discuss and compare as we go about our usual rituals.

Brilliance and illumination original and unexpected; I concede proudly potentials ascendancy. -Granddaughter

the cook

the cook

fiction
edward w pritchard

The hunters return empty handed, several slightly injured, all bone tired and dismayed.

The cook stokes up the fire and delivers a meatless stew. Weakened warriors fortified, plan tomorrow's hunt.

wood chopper

wood chopper

fiction
edward w pritchard

Two million years of evolution
supply short powerful arms
a broad patient back
ideal for chopping wood
wood, unyielding and inflexible
axe, properly sharpened
sweating face doused with cold water
toil continues doggedly
beyond stoicism or existentialism
optimism about average
duty marching on
strokes of axe violent and explosive
wood chips flowing and flying
the wood slowly pliable
order eventually regained

the disinclined beauty

the disinclined beauty

fiction
edward w pritchard

Everyone was obsessed with physical appearance. Nature played a cruel trick on her and bestowed divine beauty a plenty to her and try as she may, with her indifferent weakened will, Nature insisted that the fruit be properly and timely displayed during her brief bloom.

I the Father, knowing her nature, was saddened by the forgone loss and ironic poignancy of the situation. With a proper Father's love, I like others was often startled by the eyes and rarely when she smiled beguiled by divine beckoning, evidenced in her face, for if Gods there were, they surely would look like this.

Years pile up and God is merciful and the beauty goes from all, but for a time that light shines itself, as absolute brilliance.

three beautiful women

three beautiful women

fiction
edward w pritchard

see Visari
Lives of the Painters

Leonardo da Vinci
Ginerva de'Benci
1474
National Gallery, Washington, DC

Titian
La Bella
1535
Pitti Gallery
[ sadly not viewed by author, building closed the one day i was there]

Botticelli
Madonna of the Magnificat
1483
Uffizi

science or religion

science or religion

fiction
edward w pritchard

Searching or seeking
connected or confused
reconciliation failed of inner completeness
with outer reality

Trapped high up
hanging precariously
over the side of a solemn iron bridge
below the roadway, vacant above
but over the water hundreds of feet below

afraid to move
too proud to call out
tired of waiting
slowly we begin to pull ourselves upward
dueling with gravity, who plays for sport
we struggle for our lives with clumsy uncoordinated movement
making our position worse
no longer hanging from the iron bridge rail
but upside down
straining our necks not to stare that a way

A rational assessment made
if we are going to die anyway
why not emphasize the point
by being crucified upside down, like St Peter before

Letting go the grip with our feet
gravity accompanies us
falling at a steady measured pace
toward the river below
infinitely falling, without acceleration, with calm determination
relaxed and at peace
no longer dependent or connected
with no where to go

two women thinkers

two women thinkers

fiction
edward w pritchard

then today we will address the writings of two gifted women thinkers:

Karen Horney
the Distrust between the Sexes
Horney a distinguished psychiatrist, a contemporary of Freud, influenced by his work, but less abrasive to read than that sanctimonious SOB [author's vulgarity, not Horney's].
Horney's view of the mistrust between the sexes is, she says. caused by cultural forces that individuals aren't usually aware of, and misplaced unrealistic expectations; and that failed relationships are often the result of neurotic patterns developed in childhood.

Susanne Langer
Expressiveness
Harvard educated Langer asserts that language has it's limits, and Art, capital A best expresses emotions a vital part of a healthy human. We all spend years and years at school learning facts and math but spend little time on developing our emotions. Emotional development is best achieved through the arts, which is the theme of her essay Expressiveness.

Next Simone De Beauvoir
women are individuals, equality is best achieved through work, and why did she let Satre push her around then
end

painting the tape

painting the tape

fiction
edward w pritchard

see also cell phone messages Jan 16, 2010


I called my invention, at least the technique that i received the patent for, painting the tape. I loved to read about the early stock market manipulators who used to mislead other plungers and high rollers by making a series of trades [ called painting the tape] of a stock, usually at the open or close; so that the symbol of that stock when it ran across the ticker tape; would be especially noticed and confuse or reassure the general public. Before stock market regulation it was common, after regulation it was common also but on a larger scale.

Painting the tape, my patented invention, involved with the help of technology, delivered through a simple cell phone, assigning a three initial symbol to each significant person in the customer's [ who buy my service] life, that is present or past associates. I also made a standard set of historical characters that came pre-packaged as part of the program.

Once done, at the push of a button, for a fee of course, on the customers end, through the cell phone, they receive an electronic reminder to their brain that "duns" them to think about a certain individual or group of individuals. It causes remarkable thoughts and is a pleasant way to spend a few hours. It's a good way to get normal people to think of things besides "business". Many people of course just use it as a reminder system to think about Mother-in -laws, ex-lovers or forgotten friends. The painting the tape reference is appropriate because it is a way to remind people to take special notice of someone who they may have forgotten or pushed from their memory who using my service will remind and alert them to notice, at least in their mind from time to time.

Many individuals spend hours and hours painting the tape, just to relieve the boredom of life maybe. As I advertise it's cheaper than calling or going to see someone and a whole lot easier.

Unfortunately I have not yet covered the cost on my invention. Excessive legal fees from unintended consequences are breaking me; but I am optimistic that with time I can make some real money with my new invention.

tenseless time

tenseless time

fiction
edward w pritchard

see also the computer who couldn't accept the here and now-Feb 04, 2010

Most people attach a monumental significant to now. Now is when they are in their primacy and all events and times previous, according to the standard belief, unfolded to bring about now as unique and extraordinary. This view of time makes it common sense and logical to see time flowing past to present to future. The present is specious, to be sure, but there is a reality to it and even past and future seem to really exist.

An observer in the past of course had a now and probably had the same opinion of his own primacy and the uniqueness of his now.

Think of a Greek in 500 BC sitting down to breakfast of olives, dates and a sort of tea drink or wine. He knows nothing of us in the future. He knows little of the past before him, of two thousands years before his now; certainly not like we know his times.

He has a bowl with two handles in front of him. It is black and orange/red, and the black shines remarkably. Somber figures are painted on the bowl. There is a pathos to the figures and the Greek notes it to himself as he eats breakfast.

Twenty-five hundred years from then you look at the same bowl in a case at the Youngstown museum of art. You are startled by the colors and there is an element of timelessness in the figures and presentation that intrigues you and gets you to thinking about time.

Which was now for the two handled bowl.

racism and religion

racism and religion

fiction
edward w pritchard

I never liked religious white people as a boy. The men were always too pious, wavy black hair, blue eyes, smooth skin on their faces and sanctimonious. Being a boy, white myself, drug to church by my Father, and out spoken, I was constantly in trouble for my racism and opinions with my Dad.

Later I came to appreciate the religious women. Mostly for carnal reasons liking how they looked, dressed and their manner.

Later still I came to realize that my disapproval was an objection against the old testament message crammed into us maladroitly and inaccurately at a Baptist church.

The gospel of St Mathew is to me one of the finest pieces in Western literature. Revelation of St John is intriguing. Instead the message was always over analyzed by our teachers and my interpretations dashed.

The message sells itself. Let the pilgrim come to the old testament in their own time. St Mathew and St Luke for children and revelation for teenagers. Proverbs and Ecclesiastes for young adults. Psalms as needed. Gospel music as per your liking.

stolen table

stolen table

fiction
edward w pritchard

Someone saw the unattended table and took off with it. Limited value, but useful. With it went a little bit of innocence and exhilaration.

long time gone

long time gone

fiction
edward w pritchard

Long time gone
Jo and I sat at the table
near the racing traffic
surrounded by a cold Autumn wind
we draped Mother's bedspread across our laps
and didn't sell much corn or tomatoes
but marked a few hours as significant
while drivers went scurrying by

right place - part 2

right place - part 2

fiction
edward w pritchard

Bill the manager over at the market grille had leukemia and was dieing. Home alone, he painfully made his way through his house and outside onto his deck and was looking up at the stars at about midnight. He was imagining and planning where his self might go after his body died in a few days. Bill had been a medic in the army and knew by the look of death he saw in his eyes, that death would soon take his body.

Bill was not educated in science or cosmology but had got very motivated to find a star or maybe a planet where his undieing part might go. He desperately was looking for the right place to be after the destruction of his body. Looking at the calm bright night sky it was reassuring to Bill to think there was a right place for him to be soon after his tired sick body ceased to be.

right place - part 1

right place - part 1

fiction
edward w pritchard

Bill, Sheri and Tarle worked four to nine at the market grille. Bill was technically shift leader, management, but all three worked hard to keep the grille area and kitchen and tables clean, organized and highly functioning. The customers were wowed by the product turned out at the market grille and for 6 years Bill, Sheri and Tarle worked together and for them and the customers it was the right place to be between 4 and 9PM five nights a week.
end part 1
see part 2

first glance

first glance

fiction
edward w pritchard

after a full first pregnancy
after a thirty or more hour ordeal
the baby said to be in danger
the Mother succumbed and took the medication
despite the planned natural childbirth
finally dictated by two capable female Hindu Physicians
taking charge, the baby born
the Mother weakened, tired and drugged
they gave the boy to me
my first connection to birth or babies
the boy strong and willful, twisted in my hands
seeming to object to the recent ordeal
our eyes connected at first glance
seeing across generations, intentions, hopes and fears,
and troubles twenty years hence
initial programming complete,
two way communication established
first contact with a new soul
I handed the boy to the Doctor
and worried over his Mother

Mozart's Sisters deficiency-part 2

Mozart's Sisters deficiency-part 2

fiction
edward w pritchard

see part 1

or maybe, rather than worrying about histories verdict or feminism's struggles, Mozart's sister. Nan Mozart, grew tired of the Father's, Mother's and brother Wolfgang's bathroom humor, grew to be embarrassed as performing as an organ grinder's monkey on a leash for the spiritless pre-French revolution nobility of Europe; and struck a blow for individual rights and went her own way, refusing the quest for fame and fortune, as worshiped by the Father, and let her beloved younger brother have the accolades: him write Figaro, while she escaped into learning to sew, knit, clean house and tend children.

gone but not forgotten, sadly silent

Gone but not forgotten, sadly silent

fiction
edward w pritchard

Your memories shadow, vaporously appears to me at night,
as essence of past removals.

You refusing to stay gone, I reach out in sleep from behind my eyes, with the will to touch that preceded arms and hands.

When momentary, dreaming,  I capture your lost essence, its gone but not forgotten, sadly silent,
solidly material, far removed from my hands and arms.

Mozart's Sisters deficiency

Mozart's Sisters deficiency

fiction
edward w pritchard

Nanerell Mozart's, Wolfgang's sister, real name was Maria Anna and later was called Marianne. As a child of nine, she was considered a prodigy at the harpsichord and when her Father, a famed composer himself, took Nanerell and Wolfgang on tour in Europe, to raise money for the family, she initially received top billing. In time however, Wolfgang's genius in composing at an early age set him in all eye's as the family genius and eventually the Father, Leopold quit composing and the Sister quit touring professionally.

The questions that begs to be answered was the sister, left behind because of lack of talent or de facto discrimination against her as a woman. By all accounts she was a dutiful daughter, bowing out as necessary to her controlling Father. Wolfgang himself, although strong willed likewise had issues with his interfering Father as he got older.

Wolfgang developed as an enfant terrible, and displayed the genius and will necessary to get his talent out to the public despite the provincialism of Salsburg and the times he grew up in.

Nanerell at the Father's objection, did not marry the man she loved, her music teacher, and seemed to live in the shadow of her talented brother, although she seemed a good sister, despite later issues with Wolfgang's wife.

Mozart's son, Franz was also a talented musician but seemed unable to overcome his Father's image. He never married or had children and is remembered to posterity for his epitaph to his famous Father. Was Nanerell a similar situation. Was she paired with a brother, Wolfgang, who was of such genius that her light refused to shine beyond a certain point.

We can never know the motivations of the strict Father of Wolfgang and Nanerell. However, without taking away from the world class, once in a thousand years genius of Wolfgang Mozart; it seems safe to say that the sister, Nanerell Mozart's genius was neglected at age 13 or so, perhaps because she got sick[ as did Wolfgang on tour] and she was thereafter encouraged to stay home with the Mother and her light eventually ceased to shine as genius.

What if there had been no Wolfgang? Would the ambitious Father have put his efforts into developing as a composer his only Daughter? Would Nanerell Mozart then have been the once in a thousand year genius?

A light rain was falling- identity theft

A light rain was falling- identity theft

fiction
edward w pritchard

A light rain was falling when Wren lost his identity. It was not just something that happened to him but something he orchestrated carefully. Wren drove up to Youngstown and hired a thug to steal his identity.

Starting over had proven elusive at best and trying to make a clean sweep of things Wren paid 600 dollars to have himself erased and he lost his identity like a moth losing the accumulated materials of the last two years growth and development.

Driving his old car back toward home, Wren felt a joy of lightness that he wouldn't have to make the car payment or the on-line auto insurance minimum coverage premium for now and decided to drive the car anyway until he determined his next step.