me no like planning and goal setting; van gogh's wheatfield with crows

me no like planning and goal setting. /repost

fiction
edward w pritchard

see van gogh
wheat field with crows

After Rachel and I got engaged her Father and other of her family members had several conversations with me about the lack of planning and goal setting in my daily life. When Rachel who I care a lot about asked me why I didn't like to plan, I told her the story about the crows from my childhood. Because of the crows I don't use planning and goal setting methods.

When I was eight years old, my Mother went to Chicago with my Father on family business. During their absence I was to stay with the Burton family next door. Mr. Burton had raised three boys now grown and he and his wife ran a small farm and orchard well known locally for the apples. My Mother had grown up in the house we lived in and knew the Burton's well and trusted them. It was decided I would stay with the Burton's while my parents were in Chicago.

We were eating breakfast when I told Mr. Burton I had never shot a rifle. Mr. Burton was shocked; how could my Dad not have taught me to hunt or shoot? While I was at school, Mr. Burton made preparations to teach me the technique of shooting by designing a small shooting gallery in the backyard near the fence leading to the orchard.

Mr. Burton met me as I got off the bus from school that Tuesday night and handed me a slim twenty two rifle. I was lead back to the fence by the orchard where Mr. Burton had tied four live crows to the top of the wood fence post using red twine and green wire to strongly secure the bird's feet to the fence rail. As we walked up I could hear the terrible squawking the birds made.

Thereafter, each day after school Mr. Burton would set a goal of what percent of the crows I would have to kill on the first shot. Eventually, I was supposed to hit all of the seven crows he had secured to the fence first shot. It wasn't the shooting of the secured birds that is so bad a memory for me; it was cutting the dead crows off the fence with wire cutters that I still remember about the experience. Sometimes the birds would fly about during the confusion of the shooting and the green wire on their legs would get so tangled that I would have to snip the bird's legs rather than the wire to get the dead or injured crows off Mr. Burton's fence rail. Each night for a couple of weeks after I shot and then cut down the birds; my job would be to spray down the fence rail with the blue hose while Mr. Burton and I planned how to improve tomorrows performance. We would talk about it some more at supper and my goal of tomorrows percentage of first shot kills would be written on a yellow tablet near the telephone.

Looking back on that experience is why me no like planning and goal setting I told my finance Rachel.

space lamentation number 4c/draft 1

space lamentation number 4c/draft 1

fiction
edward w pritchard

Silent be my wagon bumping along rutted pioneerless trails

Becalmed am I, aship windless seas far from the cape of good hope

Friendless in perpetual night, blinded am I in astarless darkness

Loneliness accelerates alone, daily salt brings sudden death

Sadness times sorrow, the moon is my pillow, space dust my final resting place

Softly silent melancholy melody drifting from earth;  recollection rekindles rebirth

Spheres in motion produce trade winds and I begin to drift homeward.

thoughts on death and divorce; lovers on the stream of time, the soul and the body

thoughts on death and divorce; lovers on the stream of time, the soul and the body

fiction
edward w pritchard

footnotes and source credits  later

Traveling as lovers propelled on the stream of time I know what will happen years later, how things will end; when you warn me you will leave after a reasonable period of time.

Now I cling to you too tightly knowing one day you will unravel; I retreat into magical thoughts concerning our time together as I rehearse our break-up our eternal time apart.

Longing for the right to stay in your presence I become flighty and awkward; fears grow in me until I am not me and you are not you.

You are the body and I am the soul. I long to ask you how much longer do we have together? This can't happen we apart. I refuse to accept it.

You who would lovers be on the stream of time accept that the soul and the body will part. So revert to magical thinking to relive and retain the security of union. The sacred continuation as life.

Rationalize that there is order in the chaos of the split of the body and the soul. Re- remember when the body gave you overly elaborate directions to find it. How alone together separated from the world you two secretly huddled under your cloak. Time stood still then. For now re-live the utopia of your edited past.

or

Be Realistic about the coming separation of the body and the soul. Decay and destruction are necessary, part of nature. Fall back on existence as a cycle, you will meet over and over in time united in eternal recurrence.

or

Things could continue in a steady state, we live on biologically through our offspring and the continuation of the species.

or

Maybe there are many universes with many variant times and outcomes, in forked time you will exist again in many versions and variations.

or

Escape, the soul is alone but I am only sleeping for a long long time.

Who would lovers be accept the separation and alienation of the body and the soul. You were foreordained to drift eternally apart and alone on the stream of time.

end
to time with tongue in cheek
heading "your divorce recovery document 3"

St Francis, the persistence of memory/ draft 1

St Francis, the persistence of memory/draft 1

fiction
edward w pritchard

see " let me die on a rainy day"

The girl sleeps peacefully under the ashen white comforter of her grandmother's third story attic as I pull on my boxer shorts.

Voyeuristically as I walk around the bedroom I read the girl's self improvements instructions to herself neatly lining the walls like a first grade classroom. Each is lettered neatly in green and has a stick figure of herself drawn in thick purple crayon, some with herself smiling and some with herself looking quizzical or just a bit pensive.

" to get there dress like you have already arrived", and "fake it until you make it" and " Persistence ...

It's too intimate so I go to the window and watch and preach to the birds as they swoop down from the evergreen tree toward the purple surface of the Portage Lakes.

She said she had saved enough money to go to California and when she got there she would be an industrial fabricating design artist.

The sensations are long gone and I forgot the first name but the screeching swooping birds, the majestic green evergreen tree, dark purple lake water, and her purple jeans neatly folded on the chair seem very real despite the passage of many years.

end

progress, american indians and billy the kid

progress, american indians and billy the kid


fiction
edward w pritchard

Author responds to the long dead legendary outlaw billy the kid's comments in the previous blog about one of the stories the author wrote previously

author
i have wanted to write something about the native Americans and the invincibility shirts that were supposed to protect them from the Americans bullets at wounded knee and other places

billy the kid
i never know what the stories you write mean but it would be great if somehow, at some times, we could have invincibility from the slings, arrows and bullets of outrageous fortune.

author
the medicine men of today promise that if we have the right health insurance policy, a big house and the proper relationship with our personal banker.

billy
you need to write more

author
i have been thinking

billy
uh huh

end

progress, american indians and Billy the kid

progress, american indians and billy the kid

fiction
edward w pritchard

billy the kid
i like this that you wrote, can you expand on it?


Sunday, October 30, 2011


American Indian Boy's song

American Indian Boy's song

fiction

edward w pritchard



Once I ate seven apples in two days,

I was sick and sorry.

Another time a lady at the fort throw two bags of apples away,

because they have spots on sides.

I held Lite lamb as he died

Farmer shoot at us for taking apples from ground,

thousands of apples on trees,.

Hundreds of apples on ground.

Lite Lamb bleed slowly to death.

I wrapped lite lamb in my blanket,

light lamb shiver as he bleeds.

Blanket still show blood,

Christian lady at fort wash blanket three times.

I ride fast and chase soldiers now.

Wrapped in blanket I think of Lite lamb before battles.

Posted by edward pritchard at 1:59 AM Labels: american Indian

billy the kid comments on pritchard's writing

billy the kid comments on pritchard's writing

fiction
ed pritchard

billy the kid
I did read one thing that you wrote that I liked.

author
which story

billy

this one, let's work it in to my biography.




Thursday, December 15, 2011



three characters, no story, weak author



fiction

edward w pritchard

Trailer park whore



Small nondescript antiquated diner. Food good. Owners struggling. Building run down, equipment kept running by grandson, two daughter's waitress, ex-son in law cooks; Son in law lives in the trailer park behind property.



Enter, Molly the traveling trailer park whore. She sits at counter on the bar stool. Several of old, old male customers notice Molly for she is a full breasted woman. Forty five to fifty Molly has a faded glory about her. Molly orders the full eggs special, with meat and potatoes. Several of customers stretch themselves back to former times and hit on Molly. Molly waits patiently. Molly will sit at the bar until she finds some one from the trailer park to spend the next day or two with before she is on her way. Molly is the traveling trailer park whore.



Enforcer:



Small nondescript antiquated diner. Food good. Owners struggling. Building run down, equipment kept running by grandson, two daughter's waitresses, ex-son in law cooks; Son in law lives in the trailer park behind property.



Big man, fat but powerful. First he collects five twenties from the cook. He counts the money carefully and puts it in a crinkled envelopes and writes a few notes in a mini notebook. Work done he eats and eats. The waitresses joke with him. The cook doesn't talk with him after he is paid except to hand him his food.



The man is the enforcer. He collects money from small business owners. It is an antiquated practice but still very necessary.



The preacher gets the calling right now:



Small nondescript antiquated diner. Food good. Owners struggling. Building run down, equipment kept running by grandson, two daughter's waitresses, ex-son in law cooks; Son in law lives in the trailer park behind property.



Preacher sees enforcer pay cook five twenties at diner. The fire of the lord enters the Preacher that instant. Preacher decides to start his Church in trailer park behind this diner. Preacher walks up to trailer park whore and starts to preach.

Posted by edward pritchard at 2:07 AM Labels: mosaic

Perhaps our shortcomings; Billy the Kid / part 1/draft 1

Perhaps Our Shortcomings; Billy the Kid /part 1/draft 1

fiction
edward w pritchard

We study the past to help us understand ourselves. Perhaps the shortcomings of others long dead can help us to find our path in an indifferent world.

No person from the past is all bad. Proper historical writing about the past requires us to dig to find anecdotes and reports that reveal the positive as well as the negative character attributes of those long gone and forgotten.

Who is without sin spiritually and who is properly au fait to examine and judge another?  Be they long dead or merely forgotten.

Our lives as humans must have a spiritual component and the spirituality must hinge on the revelation that we live, suffer and then are gone.

Study and write History to help us to now understand ourselves and those we share our Time with.

Billy the Kid was born in New York City and died in near fort Sumner New Mexico. No creditable records exist concerning his Mother's birthing experience with him, no records exist concerning the family journey from New York City to Indianapolis and eventually to the Old West, and we know precious little concerning Henry McCarty alias William Bonney's beliefs and prejudices concerning Manifest Destiny, the Civil War and slavery, Native Americans and the relentless push of Progress and civilization, or the Kid's preferences in when it came to women.

Who was the Kid and why do people still revisit his life?
end part 1