John Lennon didn't die in 1980 he died at the Battle of the Somme in 1916

John Lennon didn't die in 1980 he died at the Battle of the Somme in 1916

fiction
edward w pritchard

John Lennon didn't die in 1980 in 1980 he died in 1916 at the battle of the Somme. Somme is a department in Northern France scene of a ferocious battle in WW1 where hundreds of thousands of British Citizens died in combat.

Out of convention if a man jumps back in History after his first death and dies before he was born then the second date of his death is officially used for Record as his historical date of death. Here to fore, John Lennon then, later founder of the Beatles who influenced World culture in the 1960's was one of half a million Anglo-French Causalities in the Summer and Fall of 1916 at Somme.

Little is known of Lennon's contributions as a soldier at Somme in 1916. Perhaps he played a harmonica between battles and perhaps he wrote poetry and lyrics against the absurdity of War. Perhaps Lennon's experiences with Mustard gas, flame throwers and bayonets in 1916 during WW1 at Somme later molded his strong opinions expressed in his music on War and imperialism in the 1960's.

No pictures exist of Lennon as a Tommie in the "Great War" as the British called WW1. Historians speculate that Lennon although intelligent would have just been one of the troops and not an officer.
However, in any event it's certain that John Lennon would have looked dapper in a uniform and would have marched and ducked with a certain style as he charged over the top and rolled over barb wire during Hellish conflagration. No known etchings of actual WW1 battle scenes that were drawn by Lennon have been found.

This year the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme in 1916 let us remember the forgotten millions of good Men who died in heroic battle in the Great War. If John Lennon hadn't been assassinated by John David Chapman in 1980 and still lived today he would agree that the brave soldiers who fought and died in WW1 deserve to be long remembered.

Somme a terrible word that should be recalled with sadness and resignation by citizens of all the Nations forever.

Donald Trump for President; sometimes the spirit of History is a little confused on things

Donald Trump for President; sometimes the spirit of History is a little confused on things

fiction
edward w pritchard


Why don't successful clairvoyants tell us what Donald Trump will be doing in fifteen years and publish now a copy of ex President's Trump's Wiki page from the year 2030?

Meanwhile a challenge to meticulous historical researchers living here and now. How many lawsuits have been officially filed by Donald Trump thus far in the United States as of today's date?

We like Mr. Trump's audacity. He looks to become the Hugh McColl Jr. of politics. That is as Hugh McColl of Bank America was to banking so Donald Trump will be to Politics when all is eventually said and done. The epic doings of great Men.

Sometimes the spirit of History is a little confused on things; it's hard to get your arms around what will happen in advance. Why don't successful clairvoyants tell us what Donald Trump will be doing in fifteen years and publish now a copy of ex President's Trump's Wiki page from the year 2030?

fiscal irresponsibility and the final judgment of Candidate Donald Trump

fiscal irresponsibility and the final judgment of Candidate Donald Trump

fiction
edward w pritchard

The spirit of History is always dealing another new hand of cards and each hand is ten or twenty million possible outcomes of what will happen. Sometimes three red Jacks are dealt in a row and a guy like current republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump wins the nomination and the election because of the fickle winds of circumstance and we have a Billionaire to Judge us as individuals.

How will you be judged?

To Presidential candidate Donald Trump all who have a net worth of less than a billion dollars must seem quite fiscally irresponsible indeed. Hopefully the checks and balances set in place centuries ago by our forefathers will protect us from his wrath. That is all of us who to Mr Trump look like fiscally we are a typical no frills checking account customer at the latest generation bank of Walmart.

schadenfreude is the pepper that spices the lives of the envious; the historical perspective misses the human detail and suffering

schadenfreude is the pepper that spices the lives of the envious; the historical perspective misses the human detail and suffering

fiction
edward w pritchard


Births, deaths and a muck about in between. All are missed as the historical perspective misses the human detail and suffering.

The fear and terror of the little boys of ancient Sparta snatched from their Mother's side to become little warriors in training at age seven is two brief lines in a history text.

History looks to the big picture and forgets the sorrow and sadness of the lives of the forgotten.

Meanwhile day to day we glory in the suffering and misfortune here and now of those around us. Schadenfreude is the pepper that spices the lives of the envious.

As one who has been there, done that and seen a lot we must ask " Did too wise old David Hume secretly pray when he saw a very sick child whatever the poor Souls age?

For us all, Edna St. Vincent dead smiles and writes" my candle burns at both ends it will not last the night".

I am too busy anymore to judge anyone, listening to my burning candle hiss-ss as it gets to the end of it's wick.

Here's what I wrote before:

ADBRIGHT

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2011

God help Lindsay Lohan

God Help Lindsay Lohan

fiction
edward w pritchard

God I see Lindsay is in trouble again and continues her attempts at self destruction. You and I both know that she can't help it and we both know that although she is only one person, her suffering is magnified because of international attention to her slow demise. God help Linda Lohan.

Here's what I wrote before, a few crisis es back for her:

Wednesday, May 5, 2010
even a confused broad deserves solace and comfort


God help Lindsay Lohan

fiction
edward w pritchard

Nature had blessed her with the prerequisites for fame as a beauty and nature had bestowed those blessings at an early age. Fame extracted the usual percentage and by twenty years old she was maybe beyond repair psychologically. Beyond repair if she continued to function under the microscope of the menacing and morbid public gaze.

There was still money to be made for reporting on her, writing about her and picturing her. A cottage industry followed her as she fell from grace. Her every sin was posterized,her every failing was snicked at, and she was watched voyeuristically as she stumbled to her doom. Many a financial crisis was averted among camera people by snapping and exposing a picture of her as she exited a car, or more prosaically as she threw up on someones shoes after two solid nights of debauchery. She was doing the usual rake's progress in hyper mode and by age 21 there wasn't much she hadn't stumbled into, fallen down at, or fouled up at.

Her productivity plummeted. Even the most desperate low budget film director couldn't touch her. Their business partners had had enough of her stage hysterics.

Still the pictures of her demise were valuable.

Eventually sadly to report she died. The funeral rekindled interest in her exponentially. Not just in America, but in Asia, and throughout the world.

Unpublished pictures of her became worth $50,000 each.

After a few days of her death, no old pictures were to be found. Everything was previously copyrighted and a copyrighted picture couldn't be obtained for less than $500,000.

Of course ghoulishly her body was dug up again, under the guise of a second autopsy. Her body was displayed like a shot dead American outlaw on a wood upright angled display of two by fours. She was in a white dress and had flowers in her hair.

Enough--- even a confused broad deserves some solace and comfort. Please pray for Lindsay and don't take voyeuristic satisfaction in her sad photos. Where would you be if your sins were on the international news. God help Lindsay.
Posted by edward pritchard at 10:00 AM
Labels: god help lindsay

sweet baby Jesus, i see the whole enterprise of your life and it makes me so sad

sweet baby Jesus, I see the whole enterprise of your life and it makes me so sad

fiction
edward w pritchard

Sweet baby Jesus, I see the whole enterprise of your life and it makes me so sad. Right now laying in a crib, calm, serene, the perfect baby; eyes so wise, can you see it all yourself? Where you are going, your startling end? Does it really have to happen?

Someday the good people will hate you, despise your revelations. But that's Easter, that's another Holiday. Some time off, some time in the murky future. Let's not talk of dragging crosses and processionals.

I stand in the Manger with you sweet baby Jesus. Let others sing and bring gifts. I'll catch your eye, I just want to understand.

 

Christmas on the edge of the solar system

Christmas on the edge of the solar system

fiction
edward w pritchard


It's hard for a deep space explorer like myself to have a revelry about the great philosophical questions because Houston space central back on earth implanted the Garman mood control system into my shoulder before I left earth on my way to the Kuiper belts. The Garman system in addition to monitoring my blood pressure, heart beat, diet, exercise and those type things scrambles my thoughts if I ruminate too long on a non productive topic.

I keep thinking why am I here. Why am I drifting through space?

Everyone I ever knew back on earth is old now. [ see below parts 1 to 5 for plot explanation] Yet I wake up each day, my day's lengths vary as determined by the computers on board, and I go about my assigned tasks and goals for the month. Anyway, everybody I ever knew back on earth is aging at a lot higher rate than me for some scientific reasons. What does it matter to me, Doreen 1st alone in a spacecraft. Always alone.

Computer tells me it's Christmas in a few days. Christmas in space.

I wish I could have a camp fire here on the ship and listen to Christmas carols and then sleep in a sleeping bag under the stars.

No fires on the spaceship. I can watch the stars out the portals and I can have computer play Christmas carols on the harmonica while I watch the patches of light be born and die in deep space.

Those patches of bright lights are my St Elmo's fire. The brilliant patches of galaxies lead my spaceship and they protect me as I drift through space on my journey to my destiny.

I have no idea what those distant galaxies are there for and how they relate to me. Why am I drifting through space?

" It came upon a midnight clear, that glorious song of old"

Please St Elmo dance the dance of the death fires this Christmas at midnight for me and those who come after me?

Is there a meaning? Is there a purpose?

It's me Doreen the first the space explorer who dares ask. Why am I here and how do I have the audacity to sentence those who I procreate and exist after me to slowly drift through space?

Will St Elmo protect my descendants on their journey as well and will they find out why we are here in the first place? What is it all about?

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2011

drifting through space/ parts 1, 2, 4,and 5 is new

drifting through space

parts 1, 2 and 3, 4 and 5

fiction
edward w pritchard

part 1

I am the sixth Doreen and I have been drifting through space for twenty seven years. It's time for me to reproduce soon. I will raise my daughter to age 13 and then she will become Doreen the seventh and I will die. Forty years being deemed the ideal lifespan for a female space explorer headed for the far edge of the Kuiper Belt. That's a journey of 465 years at the chosen speed we travel at for peak efficiency so God willing the eleventh Doreen should be the one to reach the far edge of the Kuiper belt. What awaits my great great great granddaughter at the far reaches of the Kuiper belt is a secret of sorts. We do it for science and for the benefits of humanity back on earth. Our origins as a species lie out in those distant Kuiper belts. It's necessary for eleven of us Doreen's to suffer a bit of loneliness and ennui in space to reach there.

Me I mate soon, and i fulfill my destiny. Drifting through space headed for the Kuiper belts as a space explorer for scientific discovery.

end-part1

Part 2

They aren't just lucid dreams. My unborn Granddaughter Doreen the eighth has been coming to see me in my dreams to advise me on how to survive this illness of cancer. It's real Doreen the eighth coming to see me.. I think it is time travel; my Granddaughter Doreen the eighth coming to advise must mean I reproduced like normal for a space-explorer, hence I had my daughter who had her daughter, and since my granddaughter is advising me I must survive this cancer and reproduce. For now I am very sick. Being sick in a small spacecraft traveling toward the Kuiper belts is difficult and discouraging.

I have never been sick before. Genetically I am immune from most earthbound diseases, My artificial intelligence unit helps me cure anything else. Where did this cancer come from. I had a broken wrist once when I was four and My Mother Doreen the fifth was with me. I wish she were here. I would like to ask Mother if she thinks Doreen the eighth coming to me in Lucid dreams to advise me on how to cure the cancer I have that my artificial intelligence can't cure is real. Is it time travel by Doreen the eighth or am I Doreen the sixth imagining the whole thing. The medicine the artificial intelligence is giving me makes me sick and nauseous. Best sleep and rest again.

end part 2

Part 3

I am Doreen the first, the famous original space explorer. The first woman to give up her life for science to travel the rest of my days through space. I left everything I had and knew on earth to travel the rest of my life alone in this small space ship. To the Kuiper belts I go. It sounded exciting at first. To find the origins of our species. Somewhere in the rocks out there at the far edge of our Solar systems was the ultimate answer to how life started originally on earth.

I am a farce. I just wanted to escape my life in Middleton Iowa. The personal life is dead for me. It worked. Preston abandoned me for another woman and I couldn't get over it. I volunteered to spend the rest of my life traveling in a small spaceship. My sin, I sentenced ten of my descendants, starting with my daughter to be, her to be conceived artificially and then nine generations of grand and great -daughters doing same.

Why am I telling this. Now they want to know if for my mate I want Preston. Apparently his DNA is on board. That bastard. He wouldn't take my calls at home before I left. He's a lot older than me now. I am getting younger compared to him because of space/time changes caused by space travel. It's not much but it adds up. The main reason our space ships travel so so slow through space is because of space/time changes. We just drift along really. Best not think of Preston again. I have experiments to do and then I have to do my exercises before dinner. I wonder if Space command center Houston would let me talk with Preston just once. I am confused by a few things he said a long time ago. Maybe Houston would OK me talking with Preston if I said I needed to be courted before the insemination. Preston could be charming.. It would be nice to talk about something besides space travel with someone.

end part 3

drifting through space part 4

read parts 1 through 3 previous

fiction
edward w pritchard

No, No no. Doreen the first cannot choose her mate. It might jeopardize the mission. We do not object to planting ideas in her subconscious to facilitate the special needs of humans. For her to be connected with her daughter during pregnancy and after is a necessary objective. But we ask, wouldn't her nurturing the child for thirteen years in a small spaceship bond the two together.

Let us think upon this and we will get back with Houston space station control directly.

Artificial intelligence assisted logical analysis unit 6

Chicago Illinois,
Jan 22, 2034
Jack Allings PHD, MD
and
artificial intelligence unit 302-Ghe level 1
end part 4

start Doreen the 5th

Dorene 5th
diary
one day in space

What's it like to have cycling in space? What's it like to be manic in space in a small, I mean very small, space shift slowly drifting through space. Drifting with no place really to go and to be in a manic phase? That's me Doreen the fifth. This is my life.

Despite all my superior genetics, oh so carefully cultivated and controlled in my ancestors; Doreen 1 through 4th  and before that my ancient ancestors on earth going back another three or four generations, I am manic in space in a small space craft. Sometimes I think I will shoot myself into space outside this cursed ship and take my chances in my space suit. The blue one, the blue space suit.

My mind is racing again. It must be a change in the weather. I can feel changes in the weather back on earth. A day or two before the weather changes I cycle from one phase to another mentally. Yes, I cycle even though I am in a space ship drifting toward the Kuiper belts and even though I am supposed to be a scientist. Immune and logical. Now my mind is racing again.

What to do of a terrific nature in a small small space ship? This manic phase will only last a few days. Large thoughts will fill my head. I can do anything now. What should I do? No where to go really; but that doesn't stop me, at least it hasn't before. During these last twenty years drifting through space toward the Kuiper belts with my manic thoughts and me bouncing off the walls of this small space ship. Here I go again. I can feel the weather changing millions of miles away back on Earth.

Maybe I will talk to my computer. My artificial intelligence friend and try to tell Ghe what it's like to be like this. Sometimes it helps to have someone to talk to. Even a machine who can't understand what its like to be human; and especially can't understand what its like to be manic depressive in a small space ship.

Greeting Ghe artificial unit number 766. Have I told you lately my latest plans and schemes? I have
some knew ideas.
Doreen 5th
end part 5

without pretension/worksheet 2

without pretension/worksheet 2

fiction
edward w pritchard



Let me live without pretension. When I work let me work, without fear of rewards or envy of failure.

When I fight let me battle, when aroused let me love when insulted let me strike quickly.

When I suffer embrace the glorious agony.. When victory occurs forget it.

If I am wronged let me be revenged future consequences be damned. Let me throw out my time line and live until I die though I start late the endeavor.

Many errors are made in the shadow of conscience. Upon reflection passion trumps thoughtfulness though others should not be advised or judged in action.

Loss is already mixed in the dough though the bread be not yet baked.

Live privately, act immediately. Life has no meaning misery is inevitable but not lasting.

Miss the future before it happens and be dead before you realize you are done.

cuz's house at Christmas

cuz's house at Christmas

fiction
edward w pritchard

Timing is everything but going to the wrong place is always untimely. Don't spend the Holidays with your wife's cousin. It doesn't matter if they live in the South there will be no southern hospitality or gentility at your wife's Cuz's place and your children will have the worse vacation experience ever in addition to learning a dozen new bad habits and swear words from your wife's side of the Family.

At five AM your wife will wake you up desperate to send you to the only open convenience store to buy two cartons of cigarettes and Thunderbird wine for her cousin's husband Merl. When you return with the booty Merl will have your son back at the creek shooting Carp with a sawed off shotgun for Christmas dinner.

When your daughter shows you her cereal at Christmas breakfast there will be some sort of flotsam a top the milk. Pressed you will identify either cigarette ashes or expired milk since Thanksgiving.

Later about 8am the Minister will stop by the house collecting money for charity inviting you, the visitors from the North to "preachin".

Cuz's house at Christmas, hopefully the pictures got tossed out with the first wife's memorabilia.

paranormal activity back in Cloudcroft, New Mexico

paranormal activity back in Cloudcroft, New Mexico

fiction
edward w pritchard

Love sick at 9,500 hundred feet soundly does I sleep back at the Lodge in Cloudcroft, New Mexico.

Alone with my memories across my minds eye I retrace my steps up, up, up the steep mountain roads, trod skyward across the scenic grounds of the Lodge then more higher ascending the narrow interior steps of the Hotel to the snug, warm crowded room where one sleeps as if drugged intoxicated by the altitude and thin air of the past.

Later in the Lobby I watch the paranormalists search for the Ghost of the Lodge's flirtatious chamber maid Rebecca, also the name of the Lodge's Bar and restaurant. Perhaps the play " the Mousetrap " will be performed later that night, presenting an intricate archaic mystery to be rolled about one's subconsciousness.

My ghost is secret and foreboding always alone with her secret thoughts and intentions. She sleeps soundly difficult to arouse from private slumbers worn down by invisible burdens and thousands of bloodless cuts and imperceptible bruises.

At the top of the Mountain at 11,000 feet it's difficult to breathe as one juggles two or three delicate ephemeral Anasazi pots in lifeless hands. Nearby Pueblos are lifeless, the ancient one's are vanished and silent.

Some prefer the forest trails at the tip top of a Mountain Peek 11, 000 feet above white sand desserts accessible only by a train that doesn't run anymore. Others, ghosts from the past seek eudaimonia elsewhere. Vanished, archaic, unverified but missed, extinct paranormal wanders.

working on the skinny

working on the skinny

fiction
edward w pritchard

If you were Serbian living in Akron between 1955 and 1984 when the proprietor Bosco R. passed on you always bought your weekly full tank of premium gas from Bosco's Sohio behind the Old post office on Market Street near St Vincent High school where Lebron James later won the basketball championship. My Mom used to have me take the Car up to Bosco's Friday nights after she got paid because she hated getting in and out of the car in front of the men who worked for Bosco. The gas lanes at Bosco's were narrow because the entire premises of the Sohio station were located on the South mail truck lanes there at the magnificent old Post office where the mail truck drivers made the difficult left turn onto busy West Market street each morning pre-1955 when the auxiliary Post Office closed. I myself had a hard time getting in and out of Mom's car because you could only open the door half way without scraping the high South Wall of the Old Post office when Bosco waived the dip stick at you to show you were down a quart or two as usual and it was real bad for the car.

Serbian people could eat paprikash at the New Era, or fried Chicken at Belgrade's of Barberton any week night according to their taste but by informal custom were coerced to buy all their gas at Bosco's Sohio. After I got arrested in Judge Murphy's court and spent two years in jail I worked for Bosco till I got back on my feet. Bosco always saw to it that I got a dollar or two tip from each of his wealthier customers on a fill-up while I worked the lanes of his Sohio.

Bosco called working for him working on the skinny because of the narrow lanes there at the gas station. We had a good community of Serbian people there around Barberton and Akron back in the Day.

the internet is the current tower of babel

the internet is the current tower of babel

fiction
edward w pritchard


Eventually someone proposed that since there wasn't a possibility of the Tower of Babel of reaching high enough so the people could see and meet God a way must be found of having the bottom of the tower not start and rest on the Ground. After searching and exploring all of the then current technologies no way was discovered to engineer a Tower to the skies that did not rest solidly on the Ground.

Since no Tower of Babel was built to reach to the Sky the various peoples never had a common language, customs, mores or a common religion. In time the original Tower of Babel was dismantled as the common people used the bricks and blocks for foundation stones for their houses. walls for forts, and defense in time of wars. Later the Romans used the blocks and bricks to build uniform roads everywhere.

Now the Internet is in the early stages of connecting Jews, Christians and Muslims into a common peoples with the Hindu's, Buddhists, and secularists to evolve all into having a common language, customs, mores, and a common religion.

The Internet with the invisible social networks of believers is in the early stages of connecting all the Folks into being simpatico now that the technology has been devised to build a Tower to the sky without a foundation that rests on solid ground.

high tea in Roswell, New Mexico/ part 2

high tea in Roswell, New Mexico/ part 2

fiction
edward w pritchard

It's not necessary to dip into the formal elegance, glamour and romance of high tea at the Savoy, Ritz or Dorchester in London, England to enjoy life and the moment profoundly.

For me the good life starts at a fine Art museum, sometimes free to enter, always worth the price to view the collection and experience three hours of civilized ambiance.

If I am going to the World class museum in any major city in America a quick lunch at the local Wendy's works for me. In it's own way the food at Wendy's is more than tolerable and the atmosphere is never too formal and the premises suit my American sensibilities.

No matter what form of transport I arrive at the museum in I quickly forget the trip cross town when I begin to view the items and paintings. Vermeer and Bronzino fascinate me.

I hear it takes light 93 billion light years to travel across the known universe and it's still not a certainty that life exists anywhere else according to those in the know. My mind can't really comprehend such things. Nor do I spend my time learning hundreds of secret meanings of the number 42.

Send me to the Art museum. It amazes me to see how someone else saw the World.

At the art museum a rock on the shelf may be a billion years old but it's the missing chips created by someone's imagination a few thousand years ago to create a delicate carving of a twisted horse that I find profound.

People, trapped in the here and now of the confines of the Milky Way galaxy, trying to find significance in every day things.

no it ain't a fiddler but someone's on your roof America

no it ain't a fiddler but someone's on your roof America

fiction
edward w pritchard

An ancient greeting in the pre-historic early proto-city of Catal Hoyuk was "may your roof be free of visitors".

Speculation by scholars indicates that the feared visitors in the ancient warning may be the Devil, provocateurs searching for a pretty woman to tempt and steal, or foreign spies and enemy agents looking for intelligence. Common usage sometimes refers to fears of ancient "gypsies" or homesteaders looking to claim property by adverse possession.

Marc Chegal's mischievous fiddler on the roof in many of his paintings is probably an ancient folk memory of the fears of intruders and other visitors or invaders experienced by inhabitants of permanent Cities such as Catal Hoyuk in ancient Turkey.

Today with xenophobia rampant in America over fears of  terrorism the old phobia of someone squatting on your roof may return disrupting the American Dream. No it ain't no fiddler but someone's on your roof America.

grand daughter, grand daughter

grand daughter, grand daughter

fiction
edward w pritchard

For a pleasant excursion someday in the future, grand daughter, grand daughter journey back to when you were ten years old.

What freedom existed then. Racing uphills on your bike, tumbling backward at will, and running quickly across the scenery. That year when you are ten years old your ego is a glassy frozen lake that stretches forward into eternity.

Look at the World purposely from behind your eyes out and lay your level hand across the texture of the flat surface of the Earth. All you see is your inheritance.

Remember me there too with you grand daughter, grand daughter, I won't be ten years old anymore; I'll be the old guy telling you to wear your bike helmet when you race up the hills of Life.

ed

disqualified late entry into the Kent State peace and war contest/part 2

disqualified late entry into the Kent State peace and war contest/ part 2

fiction
edward w pritchard

Entry not eligible for merit or mention, author is not a student, see also part 1

In the first world war trains were a friend of the people. Swiftly moving troops to the French front, shipping the wounded Home and rumbling along with supplies for our brave soldiers.

Now however in this next War the people have a primordial fear of trains, crowded train cars and trips Eastward. No one speaks of trains, no one looks at trains and if one lives near a train station one instinctively avoids looking at the people herded into long lines to swiftly be placed into the cars. One hears many rumors about the luggage of the people in the lines; no luggage of any sort may be carried in the journey. The luggage is sorted for contraband then the luggage is forwarded later secretly.

It is said there are no seats in the cars the passengers travel in and the passengers must enter quickly by huge sliding doors. Passengers huddle together to keep warm and for protection during sudden starts and stops.

Everyone cheered and smiled when the conquered French were forced to sign the surrender in the same train car that our Country was humiliated in by the cowardly leaders in World War One.

Now despite our Countries military successes in the second great war the People have a ominous fear of trains, crowded train cars and trips Westward in train cars with huge sliding doors without seats and traveling without luggage.

disqualified late entry in Kent State University Peace and War Contest

THESE ARE THE SHORT STORIES OF EDWARD W PRITCHARD OF AKRON,OHIO. STORIES ARE ON A VARIETY OF SUBJECTS.

ADBRIGHT

disqualified LATE ENTRY IN kENT sTATE uNIVERSITY pEACE AND wAR cONTEST

AUTHOR IS NOT A STUDENT- SUBMISSION NOT ELIGIBLE FOR HONORABLE MENTION

REPOST OF PREVIOUS WORK

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2013

I the universal soldier/ draft 2

I the universal soldier/ draft 2

fiction
Edward w Pritchard

soldier-draft one/ repost, edit



Me a soldier.  More than anything I wish to die in battle or like my hero Vincent Van Gogh go crazy. No such luck, I have survived over a dozen fierce battles and engagements. Early on when our blitzkrieg was remarkably successful I would not have been surprised to be unscathed but now the war goes badly and still I thrive as a soldier. I hate what we do but I fight and do my duty not to Fatherland but to my unit. I am not of the party but I fight on although the goals not be mine.

My Father himself will not hear me when I explain the Nazi machine. He is Prussian through and through, still quoting Hegel when he doesn't have a mouthful of platitudes. His wars were brutal yes, but not unspeakable, even to a fellow soldier. I cannot speak to him of ordinary things we do and I cannot think even to myself what I have witnessed. In spite of that my mind is clear; each morning I awake and I prepare for the days actions and encounters. Military life is easy for me though I hate it and hate myself for being part of.

I am as a cog in a machine, one piece in the military system of weapons and technology. I am not permitted to not function at peak capacity. I also cannot allow myself to quit, run or injure or terminate myself. My mind will not fracture or dis-join.  My logic is clear and worse my luck is remarkable. Each day I wake and prepare dutifully for today's battles despite my conscious.

I am the universal metaphorical soldier and each day I awake, leave my tent and attack my life with military zeal although I do not understand why we are supposed to fight on anymore.
end

new baby

new baby

fiction
edward w pritchard


Walking in deep fallen snows may your shoes keep you warm. Living in strange times and places may your neighbors always treat you as a friend.

May your uncles bring you apples and pears and your aunts sing to you in French and German.

May you always modestly ask for what you want and may you be satisfied with what you have and where you are at.

May your elders ask you inquiring questions and your cousins teach you to tumble and fall. May your Father teach you to rub off your bruises.

May your Pals. brothers, sisters and amigos think of you often and may your Mother serve you soup and crackers when you are old.

can the sacred be made real?

can the sacred be made real?

fiction
edward w pritchard

Can the sacred be made Real? Or has life become as sacred as a bombing raid?

Cold reality reveals a disrespect for eternity; how can existence measured in less than one hundred years have any purpose that continues forward after one's death?

Beauty in nature, fascination in contemplation about colossal distances across light years in time and space; all end in the physical destruction of  the corporal body of each and every individual. There is no significant connection between persons or generations. Continuance of the species is flux without order only chance probabilities.

Babylon, ancient Egypt, or the Medici of Renaissance Florence eradicated and forgotten. As if the individuals involved never existed at all. The only order or significance convoluted historicism on the margins of a few rare books or in the Art galleries in the astonishing eyes of the somber portraits by the great artists.

It's early Sunday morning here. The churches are locked and no blood drips from the victim on the sagging cross.

We strain to hear the church bells from Assisi and long to forget too much that we have learned.

house arrest

house arrest

fiction
edward w pritchard


After a dozen years of informal house arrest deteriorating health has intruded on my silent completion of my sentence. I have forgotten how I came to placed in this situation and I can find no legal documents with the why's and how's of the circumstances causing my involvement as an incarcerate.

Things happen gradually. First there are so many places and directions one can no longer go. Entire U.S. States or regions of the Country. West, or North, originally but local nearby places become most permanently taboo. Then parts of the city, townships, nine or ten streets with no composite name.

Then poverty, although how can one be in Poverty with two hundred fifty dollars in the wallet and a thousand in a jar in the basement?

Social stigma is subconsciously gleamed by strangers an invisible aura sent out by the eyes of the prisoner.  One is here to fore permanently the Other.

Alienation keeps one then on in the State of house arrest. Not just in one House, for change of domicile occurs more frequently than before.

Each morning it's dark when one comes to consciousness of the surroundings. It's dark as well when one finds them self asleep struggling to stay ahead of their dreams. In between one must exercise severely to avoid sudden death.

Holidays interrupt the routine. A solitary march to a well laid out feast. Sometimes with forgotten fascination for a broken cross.

Then it's back to house arrest. Silence and stillness consciously dreaming awake in the majesty of humanness.

not having anyone's addresses

not having anyone's addresses

fiction
edward w pritchard

I found a big box of unused Christmas Cards last week in the laundry room closet while looking for a few bulbs for the 2 foot artificial tree that customarily of late gets placed on the coffee table each Christmas the past couple of years. Not having anyone's addresses I haven't sent any Christmas cards this year or last, or for a long time. Usually I get a card from my Aunt out West the good Catholic lady who worries about me. I appreciate her cards.

Mainly I like to listen to Tom Waits "Christmas card from a hooker in Minneapolis" during the Holiday season.

In tribute to Tom Waits here's what I wrote before on the subject:

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 27, 2011

digressions on a song by Tom Waits

digressions on a song by Tom Waits

fiction
edward w pritchard

I 've never been to Minneapolis. Never visited the twin cities or the land of Lakes. I don't have any friends there at all who might send me a Christmas card. I envy the singer Tom Waits who has friends in Minneapolis who send him Christmas cards; like in his song Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis.

Down here in Cleveland it's not so cold in winter. Hookers down here, around Cleveland they don't write much. They aren't too friendly either and Hookers here around Cleveland, Ohio, they are not too sentimental. They don't send Christmas cards and they don't keep in touch.

Someday maybe around Christmas I can go up to Minneapolis and meet some new friends.
end

high tea in Roswell, New Mexico

high tea in Roswell, New Mexico

fiction
edward w pritchard

It was exactly at that moment staring across the table in the sad little restaurant at the wife Odetta that I realized I had never seen the girl dance the Charleston and as I listened to her litany listing her complaints about our marriage I realized I never would see Odetta dance the Charleston or anything else again.

Our marriage was over, the get away vacation was ruined and as we sat 1508 miles from our Home the prospect of finishing the $79.95 formal late afternoon high tea at the recently renovated Le Meurice diner in downtown Roswell, New Mexico seemed daunting and overwhelming to me wanting only to jump through the smudged plate glass window and race back to anywhere.

Still the owner of the Restaurant and his daughter Mosely Anne rushed back and forth from the dank kitchen bringing tray after tray of assorted Ritz crackers with Kraft American sliced cheeses or small dixie cups containing one grape, two walnuts and a pecan all the while smiling and bowing obsequiously to us the only two customers in their struggling establishment.

Odetta looked tired, she never slept well on planes. I carried a small backpack with a dozen or more brochures from the triple A of highlights of the scenery and museums we had hoped to explore over the next few days about New Mexico.

As Odetta droned on about my faults and shortcomings I recalled the Charleston originated in 1923 and could be performed solo or with a partner it's simple basic steps making it easy to improvise and develop new forms to keep the genre dance exciting and interesting.

The water cress sandwiches and finger foods were so so but hot tea is always comforting.

should one send the Ex Wife a Christmas card?

Should one send the Ex Wife a Christmas card?

fiction
edward w pritchard

After a life time of reading several thousand monumental books on many subjects and seventeen years of formal education I have been unable to find a scholarly treatise to the question of should one send their Ex wife a Christmas Card.

Consulting the internet on the computer with the question of to send or not send the Ex Wife a Christmas card there is no mention of the subject by two of the great systematizers of the causes of the Decline of civilizations Oswald Spengler or Arnold Toynbee.  Nor is the subject breached by thinker, writer and former playboy bunny Gloria Steinem. There are however four point four million references to the subject of sending Christmas cards later to one's ex by regular people on the internet with advice on both sides of the question depending on the vulgarities of the individual circumstances of the two previously involved.

Perhaps the Golden rule of the Bible should apply after formal research into the common Anglo- Saxon Law of Divorce and separation comes up empty on the subject. Especially if no mention of card sending is found during additional research into the double/double  negative ethics of the writings of Nietzsche, Heidegger or Sartre.

Can it be a purely linguistic paradox? Such as- should one [SEND] { irregular verb} a Christmas Card to the Ex wife- as according to the writings of L.Wittgenstein?

Or a utilitarian issue as in the thinking of J. S. Mill/ " greatest good for greatest number"; as example, go ahead and write a card but make sure your grand daughter  hears about it so as to teach her to write thank you letters rather than to merely text a few terse lines in response to gifts or money from Grand Fathers at Holidays and birthdays.

If one wakes at 4 AM with a conundrum in mind which cannot be solved using Western philosophy maybe one should look to distant China as in the Tao- "when in doubt take action" or to Confucianism- "forget about it".

In any event now the internet contains 4.4 million- and one- pieces of advice on the subject of should one send a Christmas card to their ex wife at Christmas.