quiet students discontented octogenarians

quiet students discontented octogenarians

fiction
edward w pritchard

go ahead and blow up the bridge, the river's not as cold as it use to be

The students are polite and very quiet when the grandson learning to walk and I pass them on their campus. Students here seems to have no badges of unity and other than their backpacks and their student loan meal plan cards the college students in my town  display no communal party patches of solidarity at all observable to the casually interested.

Also wearing the backpacks now a days are the underclass of America best observed as humble folks traveling about on city buses or on street-corners carrying signs to pander coins from rushing motorists. The signs are not political messages against our leaders but pleas for sustenance presented handwritten in magic marker on cardboard signs stored under expressway bridges and sometimes shared by more than one of the near homeless standing in a cold rain around holidays here in our hometown. There seems to be no connections between the backpacks worn by the near homeless locally and the students use of backpacks as the students use backpacks starting in fifth grade and on into college to carry expensive books to learn how to succeed in the business world and the near homeless use backpacks to display an affiliation with American cultural norms to authority persons driving about in shiny uniforms and new expensive vehicles paid for by the Octogenarians in our Society.

The octogenarians are the ones who are discontented now a days. The old guys  don't listen to Barry McGuire " Eve of Destruction" anymore but they often complain vocally about inept government leadership, inequality in the implementation of taxation strategies across the Centuries, and have strong opinions on which middle age wealthy male glamour boy understands the forgotten man in America the best. Octogenarians should never wear a backpack- it's like putting a hat on a horse, and anyone over sixty five in America is pretty much harmless anyway in reality, that is unless he is an older  male politician. In any case the elderly including the octogenarians have no solidarity either. The elderly have no clout collectively at all because too many of them are sidetracked by economic issues but when sitting in a group at the McDonald's having  the discounted senior coffee the elderly express loudly to the entire dining area strong heart felt opinions on libertarian-ism, rising health insurance costs, property taxes and of course why if a person can stand in a cold rain all day holding a sign begging for money from drivers at expressway exits why can't they just get a job, like everyone else.

There is no Solidarity in America among the students, the under classes, the elderly or anyone else that I can see. But somehow we all maintain the Hope that the wealthy short haired conservative male politicians will look out for the interests of all of us commoners. Most of the time we just go on with our lives forgetting about how dysfunctional things are now compared to when Ulysses S Grant or Warren G. Harding was our President

Advice to students from one of the elderly? I hear our new President wants to beef up our navy with some new mega battle ships and restart the nuclear arms race. Students work for or invest in companies that make 1950's style bomb shelters and maybe listen to a little of Barry McGuire's " Eve of [Disruption] strike that of Destruction". Both are a little corny but since the future is so hard to predict I recommend -everything old is new again. Watch for me in a backpack hiking along watching and silently observing or maybe complaining and pontificating a little too loud over a McDonald's senior coffee.

Grandson's first birthday wishes

Grandson's first birthday wishes

fiction
edward w pritchard


Ordered by your Mother not to buy you a present for your first birthday party today I'll impart advice to sit with the Love and comfort  I give each time I am blessed fortunate enough to spend a few hours chasing you about as you perfect your walking and understanding. Fret not little King I'll slip you a cookie, vegan of course, with no sugar the next time we exchange vowel sounds standing in front of a mirror down at Quaker Square were we spent some time together way back in early Winter 2016 before the oat silos where torn down, you grew into a man, and I disappeared into your distant memory.

First listen more than you talk to those around you during this the next year as you face the daunting and extremely fascinating challenge of learning to talk to be understood and hearing to understand. From your Mother's parents may you harvest eternal curiosity with the nuances of words and symbols, spoken, written and sung and the intricacies between our language, our dreams, our Culture and the invisible Universe that sometimes is easy to forget and difficult to understand.

For your tenth Birthday Love and worship your Mother and smile kindly at your Father when you best him in a race. Play the piano with your uncle and grandmother when they sing you happy birthday. When you are twelve sleep outside on hard ground in the wind and cold, capture breakfast food from a Lake or stream and tramp joyously about the hills and valleys enclosing your environment.

For your nineteenth year be polite to your elders, kind to your girlfriend and respectful of your neighbors. Stay busy, value rare time alone, and stop and brush snow off your Mother's car in an early morning winter storm.

to be continued

and me, your grandfather, what was I like at about 65 years old coming to grips with my mortality?

here is something I wrote, some what related to how we are born, bloom and eventually die and must eventually pass on,

when the circus packs up and steadily moves out of town

when the circus packs up and steadily moves out of town

fiction
edward w Pritchard

Us farmers, store keepers, women and children milled around a long time after the circus packed up and steadily left town. The ground shook from the trump of the elephants, the squeak of the wagon wheels carrying the fat lady and the fire eating boy could be heard for a long, long way off and you could see the red hair of the world's tallest man for over a half mile before the entire circus retinue was out of sight; steadily traversing Cario hill off southwest to Carterville.

For four glorious days our lives were transformed by all the performers of the three ring circus but now the strongman who wrestles a giant bear, the woman who trains miniature horses, and the rest of the troupe are all gone; off to the next venue. 

Back to our lives tomorrow.

a poet, an artist, and a romantic in the trenches

a poet, an artist, and a romantic in the trenches

fiction
edward w pritchard

Captain says he don't need a poet, an artist or a romantic in the trenches when the enemy starts to bomb with the big guns, sends over the noxious gases on a foul wind, or sneaks up on you in the dark and sticks a twisting rusted bayonet in your buddies neck where it attaches at the jaw.

Ain't that the way it is, you try to behave with civility and some mercenary from over there blows a whistle and over the top they come at full gallop giving the rebel yell fighting with a fury for King, Country, big business interests and their own intricate long range plans of economic comfort after they retire from the competition to have stuff and earn a good comfortable living.

If you are going to carry a bible here in the trenches don't read it, and don't follow what it says about love thy fellow man; stick it in your shirt pocket it might just stop a bullet one day.

You can't reason with them on the other side, they ain't your friend, you don't owe them nothing and  this disagreement between countries is just a catastrophic explosion that will send pieces of the heart's of a poet, an artist and a romantic flying in all directions.

There ain't no civility or rules involved protect yourself at all costs and don't forgive them with passing time nor does self interested explanations  mitigate what the enemy did. Protect your heart from further damage.

Don't close your eyes for a moment staring out into the darkness and dust across no man's land. One day they will be a comin back over the top.