sons, grandsons and a feminist perceptive on achievement

sons, grandsons and a feminist perspective on achievement

fiction
edward w pritchard

Once I sat with my two oldest sons on the banks of the Mississippi river high above the town of Hannibal, Missouri where the author Mark Twain sat as a boy circa 1845 and watched the waters of that mighty river flow off into the future. Sitting there watching the magnificent river flow I thought how hurriedly time flowed away and worried a bit about what would become of my two beautiful oldest sons then both less than ten years old sitting quietly with me very much at peace and was saddened by the thought that one of the realities of passing time was soon every boy and their memory is faced with the eventuality that boys grow old and are gone into silent obscurity. So to author Mark Twain, his fictional creation "Tom Sawyer" who no one reads anymore, my Father who played Tom Sawyer and once kissed his schools " Becky"character as lead in the class play of "Tom Sawyer" at Morgantown high school, myself who played as a real boy over canals, lakes and rivers, me  play acting alone the roles of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn as a boy and now as myself who tries to help my only grandson create the same 1840's over hills and rivers American experiences as a boy of less than two years old. In my small way I give my grandson some time to be outside as a boy.

Intellectually I have been perplexed in my readings and studies on why no woman painters or philosophers jumps to mind among avid learners or the general public when the general subject of women of achievement historically is discussed. It's more than just men writing the historical record, or lack of opportunity for women; Paintings and philosophical writings among women of genius in those fields throughout history often seem a side line only. Perhaps when a female is ten years old contemplating a flowing river they have a different biological spin on the mysterious angst of the realities of passing time because of their unique ability to actually create life, in fact, in finality. Perhaps that is all there is to our brief existence.  Creating and passing on life being our only immortality.

I have never understood the biological side of women well enough to understand the feminine perspective on achievement and our biological destiny as people. Hopefully I will do better with the brief time I will have with my second grand daughter who I am soon to meet.

Two faced

Two faced

fiction
edward w pritchard

Two faced woman
I see only your eyes
lead me to biological destiny
stumbling blindly onto
unknown futures
forsaking, friend, foe
months are centuries
dashing, bashing
fro and yon
union at
sacred source

beautiful people

beautiful people

fiction
edward w pritchard



beautiful people
it's so fleeting,
80 years and they're gone forever

lucky day

lucky day

fiction
edward w pritchard

Two things happened on the bus ride down to the office for the babysitting job the other day between me and the white guy bus driver that were significant in an insignificant type of way for a Monday morning. Of course since most everyday a different bus driver is assigned to drive my bus route  lucky number 19 downtown I won't be able to tell my bus driver about the unusual co-incidence concerning lucky number 19 I bet at the casino yesterday, Sunday, when I enjoyed a fine nearly free buffet with my son.

The buffet after we got up to the casino up North of town in my son's car that I helped fix recently with the miracle of dry gas from the auto zone, that worked quite well by the way, wasn't exactly free but it was very good and cost for the two of us only six dollars after the free $25. credit I got in the daily card swipe when you walk into the casino. Most of the six dollars was for tips for the waitress who brought us our ice teas as I like to share my good fortune with working folks, and she did a good job of bringing us ice teas even though we had another drink, our two dollar beers from the secret special bar there at the casino room that I am allowed to enter because I am " gold" member  because of regular attendance. I also got a card for a lucky thousand dollar drawing which I dropped into a drum already holding about 10,000 other potential winners.

Anyway that white bus driver on the previous Monday when I walked the 1200 steps on the garmin from where I stay to the awning covered stop that rainy morning was doing his route book notes when I entered the bus and since I didn't have my usual 50 cents, two quarters for the the senior citizen discount rate I gave him a buck, into the auto-matic ticket counter and I remarked making conversation, that the 50 cent ticket credit card I got back as change was just like winning at the casino, [I was implying -another time] and then I asked him, who he was kind of cold and straight, for a bus driver, if he frequented the casino, as I was the only person on the bus, it being the first stop, there at the low income grocery store, on the white side of town, and he replied emphatically- absolutely not, meaning and further saying "  I don't waste my hard earned money".

Well a few miles later over in the black side of town on the same 19 route last Monday, a thirty something black guy gets on the bus, with a kind of pushy type black girl friend, and her beautiful and very special maybe 11 year old daughter and for some reason the white bus driver will  let the man and woman on the bus for free as it is customary to let homeless type people on for free but not the young girl as she is wearing a back pack and is obviously a student and therefore she can't ride for free although by custom free service on the bus is typical in this type of situation. Well the guy is ready to get off, and not take their trip this early Monday morning with his family but the woman makes a bit of a ruckus and eventually the little girl is allowed to ride for free, the woman sits behind me and complains about the bus driver the entire ride, none of us five other passengers had to get up and give the bus driver the 1.50 student fare for the little girl, and she the special young girl with a back pack, she  got to school last Monday, and hopefully forgot that incident and I got off that guys bus at the terminal and walked the rest of the way [ 1100 step] steps on the garmin to babysit and forgot about that little girl with the backpack until, about a week later, yesterday Sunday at the casino.

I was thinking yesterday Sunday at the casino about choosing my lucky bus number 19 when I choose my six numbers for keno, when I started to play with the twenty bucks I had earmarked for gambling, after my son and I finished our six dollar buffet when Lucky day- happy day, over the loud speaker Ed P - last three numbers of my gold member card 922 had won a thousand dollars in free play! Which since free play is not a thousand dollars in real money I had to work real hard there at the casino over the next five hours to run one thousand dollars of free play through the machines until I left happy, happy, happy with six hundred actual US dollars.

For some reason on the way out of the casino with an extra $600 dollars in my pocket I was thinking about the white bus driver implying to me what a chump I was, that's how I took his comment that, absolutely not, "he wouldn't gamble at the casino", I probably thought of the bus driver because of me thinking about the number 19 bus earlier when I just won the drawing, a ten thousand to one shot, having my entry card picked out of the spinning barrel.

I have to get up in a few hours today, this Monday morning to catch the nineteen bus and for sure, odds are, I won't have that same white guy bus driver but if I do I am going to tell him about my $600 dollar happy, happy Sunday yesterday and give him a five [$] bill to let someone ride for free who is in need.

I hope that little girl didn't feel bad about almost getting asked to leave a public bus last Monday. It wouldn't be appropriate for me to give her a few bucks if I see her again, and certainly her Mother doesn't like older white folks anyway, but I bet if her Mother's boyfriend heard the story of the winning ticket I got at the casino he would give me a smile for my luck. I bet he, that little girl with the backpack's Mother's friend,  could empathize with what it is like to be me, an older White guy and routinely take a bus to work early on an ordinary insignificant Monday morning and have the good fortune of having an extra $600 to start your week.

space is deep but the ship is small

space is deep but the ship is small

fiction
edward w pritchard

It's hard to avoid periodic contact with one that one has been intimate with when far across the galaxy on a journey of exploration. Space is deep but the ship we travel on is small in the vastness of the expanding universe.

This vessel owed by Rand corporation bringing rare minerals back to Earth is seven earth miles long and nearly two earth miles deep with over sixteen thousand quadri-deck levels transporting along with all the economic cargo several thousand scientists, Doctors, engineers and at least one attractive lady lawyers among the crew and personnel. In such proximate quarters and habit I am bound to bump into my former mate now and then.

It's awkward for me because Rand personnel number 27,888 refuses to follow standard space travel protocol rules 28 to 32 when we randomly meet. At such times I often become distracted on my mission to the mystic source. Later recriminations and regrets interrupt annual six month deep sleep suspended animation patterns sometimes for hours at a time.
      

the super computer in the head that comprehends it all

the super computer in the head that comprehends it all

fiction
edward w pritchard

Ring.

The phone never rang and should have been off the hook anyway. It was an inopportune time for a phone call on the stout black solid bell phone that never rang and shouldn't ring because the only person who ever called out on the phone was occupied and the
only
ever
caller on that Bell phone that
cost fourteen dollars a month to sit most of the time silently waiting for a mysterious phone call  was the occupier.

One ring and the super computer in the head that comprehends it all raced through fifty million future
intereactions
and starved for opportunity and danger answered the phone. Uncharacteristically impolite
the deal was set, the future mortgaged, joy/sorrow,exhilaration/regret two grandchildren with another on the way
later
no one has a stout black solid Bell phone anymore, viewing texted messages instead at inopportune times now a days and where will future grandchildren come from and where will the super computer in the head that comprehends it all glean the opportunity and danger that procreates the Earth?

what time is it

what time is it

fiction
edward w pritchard

Here where I stay there is the party going on but we can't find it anymore. Something about a very fine building with cascading decks and new never driven cars and long term contracts and enjoyable music but we can't hear the music, we can't find the party, and the new car is very old and needs expensive stuff from the auto zone pretty much everyday anymore.

No one I know is at the party. At the party are the people from television, the movies, the internet social clubs, the one's who take long expensive trips, have extra new cars parked about and who are always courted by the banking and financial industries about their retirement. The people at the party spend a lot of time thinking about long term phone/data contracts, all kinds of insurance stuff, medical problems and prescriptions, tables and tables of restaurant food,  and minute to minute changes in the President's opinions about the first hundred days.

The music has stopped, I can't find the party anymore and the contract we signed has expired. What happens next?