so much to say

so much to say

fiction
edward w pritchard


There's so much to say about Napoleon Bonaparte spending the last half dozen years of his life there on the tiny obscure island of St Helena. Napoleon lived in a crumbling damp old house until his death in 1821 at age 52 probably from stomach cancer. So much to say but no substantial information comes forward from History to satisfy how the great Man Napoleon endured the last insignificant half dozen years of his life.

Napoleon was very lucky in his rise to power in France from bullied boy who misused words in his second language French to Great and successful military genius who crammed the museums of France with stolen art treasures from all over Europe. A cultured man Napoleon liked the good things in life. Winning battle after battle Napoleon spent his life as a soldier and leader of Men.

Napoleon's great victory over Russia at Moscow escaped him as Alexander 1 of Russia refused to discuss surrender terms. Tired of waiting in Moscow as Russian winter approached Napoleon and armies started off home to France only to be decimated by Fate in the hands of bad weather, Cossack's harassment and the desinigration of the grand army.

Only at St Helena was the charmed career of Napoleon really over. Napoleon died a man  but lived as a god small g. Like Alexander the Great of Macedonia before him and Hitler after him he didn't know when to stop.

the Indian rope trick

the Indian rope trick

fiction
edward w pritchard

Jesus didn't attract much attention performing the Indian rope trick over and over in old India around
the turn of the last century.

First Jesus would gather an audience in a busy marketplace with a few parables drawn from everyday life or a few proverbs. Next Jesus would stand the rope on end, being careful never to let anyone handle the rope. Then just like that Jesus would climb the rope disappearing above. Immediately an assistant would jump on stage and throw a handful of coins into the audience actually a small percentage of the gate charge was being returned to distract the attention of the audience.

Witnesses later swore under oath that Jesus had disappeared into the sky. Skeptics later claimed that the rope was actually a bamboo rod, or was secretly supported by wires. For publicity the magicians society offered a three hundred pound reward to anyone who could duplicate the trick but no one came forward to perform under controlled conditions.

Indian street performers later when questioned about the secret of the trick merely smiled refusing to speak on the record. 

girl at a half door

girl at a half door

fiction
edward w pritchard


In a garden
at a window
a girl at a half door
handed me an apple
deliciously lusious
part pear, part apple, part peach
to be savored over and over
later in a dream
it came out she wasn't an original Rembrandt
merely attributed to the studio of the artist's assistants
succulent never the less, the girl never changes
while myself like Rembrandt in self portrait
grew older and older
blemished of skin, wrinkled off face
struggling to maintain a little dignity in the old sad eyes
among-st allegations of fraud
so, so long ago that garden of my dreams

His name was Genet

His name was Genet

fiction
edward w pritchard

His name was Genet aand I met him at the abandoned trailer park in Tuscon, Arizona. He told me he was searching for the City of God. Before I was a wounded veteran I went to two years of college so I took it upon myself to explain to him the difference between the City Of God and the City of Man of St Augustine and in jest added that I was sure he wouldn't find the City of God anywhere in America.

Genet was grateful that I gave him half a pack of cigarettes so he took it upon himself to explain a few things to me. He said that the City of God was a metaphorical place, geographic but not visible in Time. Just as likely to be somewhere in Arizona as in say ancient Rome or Israel or somewhere like that. For his last piece of advice Genet told me I should go to the VA hospital as it was free and it was hard on a man to live like we do as vagrants.

Sometimes when I am alone, sleeping in the cold I wonder if Genet ever found what he was searching for.

an insidious knock in the night

an insidious knock in the night

fiction
edward w pritchard

It comes like as insidious knock in the night, like a bump of a mouse creeping into the kitchen of a grand mansion. 

Judgment has come to town. A very fat man riding into the territory on a small white burro. Beginning to spread money for information. Building a network of vengeance and innuendo of things that shouldn't be said. The fat man knows it is time to leave when those who squealed begin to turn on each other. He knows when the good men of business begin to fall he must quickly ride his burro far away to another place.

Money, money money for information, for secrets. God knows anyway, speak your duty.

And the victims. Turn the other cheek, forgive your enemies. Always with Love, always faith, charity, hope.

Then the secret archives of summary judgment are passed into the future. Pious Monks in silent Irish monasteries on rocky cliffs along the frozen crashing ocean waves preparing ornate scrolls beginning with one gargantuan flowery letter of the alphabet proclaiming the distant past for tomorrow until invading Viking armies burn and plunder and grant one heart felt request of the oldest broken Monk begging to spare the worthless scrolls. Mercifully the invading raiders light their fires with something else. 

Then it's all passe. A new idea comes like an insidious knock in the night, like a bump of a mouse creeping into the kitchen of a grand mansion.

pay day never comes

pay day never comes

fiction
edward w pritchard

Why is there no surgery to implant the gene that enables one to save money every pay day for their entire life into our breast so we would always have a positive net worth and lots of security?

Tomorrow is payday and already most of the money is owed out for bills and obligations. It's getting so we can hardly keep up with our bad habits anymore.

Sometimes our security is the ability to face another day with a smile. Pay day never comes. That big bonanza we are always waiting for is so elusive.

No matter. True, hope is not an investment strategy but it keeps the old heart pumping for another month. Until the next social security check comes in the mail. 

nothing comes to sleepers but a dream

nothing comes to sleepers but a dream

fiction
edward w pritchard

Every year or two my heart Doctor the specialist has the Talk with me. It's about sudden death that occurs among former heart attack patients of which I am one. It's odd because my health is good now and because of medication, formerly having some heart valve surgery and closely watching my diet, exercise and health habits I feel and sleep well, enjoy living and have totally come to grips with the brutal fact that he who is born must die, some sooner than others. Death occurs unexpectedly to us all eventually.

Of course this is a gruesome topic to discuss, especially unpleasant to the younger folks. In my case my grip reaper of sad tidings is a polite and urbane smallish civilized Doctor who about once a year feels compelled to remind me of Reality as it is.

Reality has a way of teaching one to adjust their philosophy to life as it is in fact. As the Blues doctor, not the heart Doctor but an old sad black guy with a twanging guitar says " nothing comes to sleepers but a dream". Meaning wake up and live and see things as they are. It's later than you think.

Don't wait for imaginary friends or things to come and rescue you. Get to the business of life yourself. You know what to do. You are unique in Nature. Develop, live thrive.

Hear the crackle of new life under the  ice and snow that entraps us. Get up move, reach out. Free your sleeping spirit from it's entrapped enclosure. 

homeless in San Diego; not even Brain Wilson is exempt

homeless in San Diego; not even Brain Wilson is exempt

fiction
edward w pritchard

San Diego has a chronic problem with homelessness. In an effort to combat homelessness humanely and by rule of law the Police in San Diego, California  routinely resort to the issue of tickets for encroachment on public property. It's a sad little war the police there in San Diego are forced to fight on behalf of the Public. Without an income, a home or a car a homeless person has trouble getting to court to endure legal due process. One thing leads to another and failure to appear for a hearing or pay a fine timely leads a low functioning homeless person into jail or even prison.

Last Summer a law suit on behalf of homeless persons ticketed for encroachment was filed in San Diego. San Diego, California has a long history of problems with homelessness, outbreaks of hepatitis c, and unsightly trash accumulation, partly due to exorbitant rents in the area and lack of sufficient low income housing.

In an effort to alleviate some of the problems of homelessness and stall off future litigation on behalf of homeless plaintiffs the City of San Diego has resorted to providing temporary shelter in Balboa Park a large public space.

Former California millionaire Beach Boy Brian Wilson was once picked up for vagrancy as a homeless person in Balboa Park back in 1978. Wilson, genius rock and roll hero,  who wrote " When I grow up to be a man," [what will I be] currently has a net worth of 75 million dollars and has attributed his previous problems with homelessness to alcohol, drugs and mental illness issues.

Rather than arrest Brian Wilson back in 1978 California police took him to an alcohol rehab facility.

One never knows who will be effected by homelessness. Rich or poor homelessness in America effects us all although often the problem remains unseen to ordinary people as they struggle with their own problems. 

the reality of cold weather

the reality of cold weather

fiction
edward w pritchard


The times determine the reality. It's cold tonight but in a house, with the furnace burning viciously, one sleeps unconcerned for the cold and winds. We worry only the cost all that natural gas will accrue as on next months gas bill.

Not so native Americans who lived previously here in Northeast Ohio in January. Tonight it's 18 degrees with a wind chill of about zero. Last week wind chill was ten below. What's it like to sleep outside in Ohio in January?

Well I have. Once for two nights in ten below zero before wind chill's were measured and announced by the weather bureau.

We slept in a tent at boy scouts camp. We hauled large sleds around  all day from place to place filled with weights in a Klondike derby competition. The plan was to eat only certain foods but that plan was abandoned because of how many thousands of calories we burnt off trudging in the cold. Some eagle scouts wanted to build a lean to and sleep on pine branches with only a small fire and sleeping bag for warmth. Again plan abandoned. It was too cold.

I will never forget two days in sub zero temperatures in Ohio with no where to go to be inside and nothing to do but stay busy to be warm One slept soundly and awoke at 4:30 AM. One ate heartily.

Concerning the native Americans when the wind blows and the temperature is sub zero one admires our ancient forbears their fortitude, tenacity  and survival skills.

To be young again. To yearn to be alive.

a view from a room of my own

a view from a room of my own

fiction
edward w pritchard


A room of my own has become a burrow in a basement underneath the dissolving foundation of the American ship of State.

Meanwhile our enemies wait and plan eyeing our bounty of resources. Manufacturing imaginary sins we are guilty of to justify their avarices, their plotting takes root and our enemies seek secret alliances to attack our country, to steal our resources.

To our enemies the American union of States must be broken and be weakened into competing independent Countries. The great wealth of the American States must be used to pay reparations for past injustices to foreign elements speaking obscure languages say our enemies.

Repent, the end is near. Know who your fiends are.

castles in the air of unrequited love

castles in the air of unrequited love

fiction
edward w pritchard

It's a sort of virus this plague of unrequited love. Many about us but for circumstance and reality would joyously always be with  their love object. But for their feelings for another the object themselves of the unrequited love would be perfect. If not for real world concerns, limitations and matter facts the multiverses of unrequited Loves would end and normalcy would return again.

A network of unrequited Love develops over time as a megalith of interconnected castles in the air. The castles are built and manufactured by those who cannot see things as they are, cannot see things in themselves. The great pretenders of unrequited Love dwell among the romantic vicissitudes of castles of imaginary relationships far removed from the real world. 

There is no way to build a foundation under the interconnected networks of unrequited love. The floating castles themselves will not crash to earth until the final realizations of the death of the delusions of connected-ness between dis-familiar entities is manifested. 
 

There's no hierarchy in an Archaeologist's pile of bones

There's no hierarchy in an Archaeologist's pile of bones

fiction
edward w pritchard


There's no hierarchy in an Archaeologist's pile of bones as he methodically sorts bones fragments found part by part underneath the collapsed roof of an ancient Roman Villa. The femur of an 11 year old girl with shin splints, the skull of an old man or all the upper extremities of a three and a half year old child each get identical sealed plastic bags for transport to storage from the field dig site to the Museum back in London.

How Jesus is praised across the ages because he treated people the same regardless of rank or ability to further his career. It is so remarkable that in all cultures and time and places anyone who treats everyone fairly is remembered kindly as a higher level person.

An hour until any major battle anywhere in the American  Civil War circa 1864 as the officers walk among the troops rank is forgotten on both sides temporarily as people face up to their own mortality and the calamity of what is about to conspire. Then one hundred and sixty five years later there sits that archaeologist at the dig site wiping his soiled glasses in a light rain as he sorts and places into large zippy seal-able storage bags the skull of an older man, or the backbone of a teenage boy. Only the buttons and shreds of dissolving cloth help him identify officer from enlisted man or North from South.

Don't rank and Judge people based on what they can do for you or who they are. It so not important in the long run.

Two Presidents or no President

Two Presidents or no President

fiction
edward w pritchard

Is it time in America for two Presidents or no President.

Currently there is so much friction, so much noise coming from the white house that it is amazing that anything gets done. Maybe it's not the Presidents fault as a man but a system design fault in the operational machine itself. Perhaps an update is called for, a system design modification.

Today a Celebrity is in the news for starting her campaign strategy to be the first successful female  President in the next election. Of course this time again things will be different, her given a chance. Obviously we wish her luck.

Realistically perhaps two Presidents at once with a split of executive duties might work better. Or, no President with a viable alternative could be looked into.

The current system of American Presidential government was designed over two hundred years ago. Maybe it's time for a system design modification.

so many financial indices

so many financial indices

fiction
edward w pritchard


So many financial indices start our day. Individual stocks and bonds are totally passe. Gone with the ticker tape, gone with old Jewish men of means sitting in a Merrill Lynch office watching the prices move left to right across an electronic board while they reminisced about how their fortunes started that day Uncle Hy gave them a lead on where to get a trailer load of rusted iron rods.

So many stock indices and composite sector international investments  fill the business news channel that I no longer wait to watch what the pretty blonde news casters have to say about Hong Kong this morning or Kuala Lumpur this afternoon.

An interesting index that I used to hear discussed was the misery index. Starting in the Johnson administration it is an attempt to  garner the actual well being of American families. I have never seen daily fluctuations reported but it is interesting if that type of pin point accuracy was possible because of new developments in machine intelligence. Of course it could be paid for by allowing speculators to invest with commissions to middlemen and a small fee to maintain the house.

Related would be creation of a daily index of severe misery on the Continent of Africa. A daily fluctuating poverty index. Currently persons living below the sustainability to live criteria is always highest worldwide in Sub Saharan Africa. If daily fluctuations in such an index were reported perhaps strategies to lower that index each day could be gleaned as a by product of speculation for profit in wealthier Countries by investors going about their normal business activites. As a by product severe misery and extreme poverty worldwide could be permanently lowered.

The blue angel of death

The Blue angel of death

fiction
edward w pritchard

I met her at the Starbucks as the Blue Angel of death visiting America. She said she had just came from Hapsburg Vienna one hundred years ago informing all there of the death of The empire, Culture and way of Life.

The Blue angel of death does not come to tell individuals about their own death. The harbinger of death is foretelling the end of Culture, end of Civilization in total, in a particular time and place, an illusion destined to change drastically forever.

She does not converse with you over coffee about the pathos of War and destruction. She is intelligent, she is urbane, she is a goddess of beauty, she knows people in the know of your childhood veneration, she knows celebrity en mass. Unlike contemporary women she will speak of Art, always capital C, she doesn't gush about business, tax cuts,  stock prices or global trade and growth but instead as you talk asks about great books, fine music, architecture, great Men for the Ages.

She begins to steer the conversation skillfully pointing out your illusions of your County's lack of vulnerability. She Weighs with words the magical thinking everyone in your Society lives by. She talks of persons en masse feeling warm Security in the invisible cocoon all dwell in. She laughs how it's always truism at the end that all believe our leaders are mediocre, true, normally greedy and avaricious and ordinary, but our philosophical ideals, our system of government, our Kulture will endure for ever. 

Then she talks and you listen. She is foretelling the future. About Russia and China, secret alliances and mass armies attacking in the extreme cold across the Bering straight into Alaska and Canada. She mentions 40 million casualties in a low whisper.

Then she smiles one last time, Gets up to visit the ladies room and is gone never to return.

Your return to your life. Such a charismatic lady. What were those books she suggested you read.

The Blue angel of Death it's startling when she arrives, before you know it she's gone. It was a dream wasn't it.  Then off on the wind the love affair is over. The end of delusion has arrived. Pick up the pieces.

Who should you tell first.

a landlord in the White House

a landlord in the White House

fiction
edward w pritchard


Louise said I was acting impertinently but when American President Donald Trump dropped by my Home I asked him to take a look at the bath tub drain clean out near the furnace in the basement. I just wanted his opinion. Since I don't own one of those drill attachment electric snakes I wanted to know if he, Mr President, thought it was advisable to call a plumber.

I know a lot of intelligent people debate the subject of proper qualifications for a sitting head of state. Businessman, experienced politician with increasing levels of responsibility or plain old Lawyer type.

For my  buck give me a man who is experienced as a landlord in the White House anytime. For that matter for next President a woman would be fine if she had landlord experience. Women are often better at collecting past due rents than a man.

When the President talks to you for any reason now a days they have one of his assistants get you to sign a non disclosure agreement. So I won't be able to discuss the issue with my drain.

Other than that then I have no more to say on the subject.

live live backwards

live live backwards

fiction
edward w pritchard

It would be so much the better if life were experienced backwards. At least experiencing life backward would prepare some of us to better understand how to survive the World we find ourselves in.

Not as in " The curious case of Benjamin Button" by Fritzgerald where we go from old to young month to month in our conscious and physical confrontation with the World-again re experiencing our teenage revelries, careless days of youth and getting stronger month to month,

but more like in "Ward 6" by Russian writer Anton Chekhof.

The Russians, like the writer  Chekhof, have a much more dismal reaction to their external world because of the cold, because of what fifteen days of sub zero weather can do to a man when he is old. In a world when it is always dark, when one only exists to serve the State economically and where one must make the necessary psychological adjustments to stark reality to survive a little longer what else can one wish for than a glimmer of understanding of  what does it all mean?

F. Scott Fitzgerald a good writer, Anton Chekhof a great writer.

One life closely examined has a certain banality about it. Time to put on the coat of a new philosophy to adjust myself to my World.

Meanwhile here and now the cold snap has ended. It will be spring again in two months and two weeks. I have significant things to do this week.

I must plan and implement a birthday gift for my Grandson's significant second birthday.

First though I have important duties in babysitting to share with the Boy, my only grandson.

I don't have time to listen for the loud exploding impact of trillions of interactions of atoms of cause and effect swirling about me.

Eyes properly down trodden I trudge forward. It feels warmer. Two months and two days to Spring renewal.

Deja vu again this year.

Channeling my dead ancestors

Channeling my dead ancestors

fiction
edward w pritchard

The only time I can come close to channeling and understanding my dead ancestors is when I am very sick with a severe chest cold, fever and physical ennui resulting in myself being unable to carry my weight in contemporary society. When I cough enough to disturb the sleep of those closest to me I experience distant racial reminiscences of how our ancestors would have had to isolate one of their society when they are sick to the point of alerting enemies and animal predators to weakness in the tribe.

One thousand generations ago our ancestors would have laws and customs of how to isolate a severely impaired person. Of course even then members of the group would be treated humanely. Perhaps the sick person would be placed in a sweat lodge to use heat to facilitate communications with the divine seeking healing and remission of illnesses. Later perhaps a spiritual leader would inform the impaired that they will be be reborn again after earthly death better than before. At some point however the impaired would have to be abandoned with a small chance of natural healing the only humane remedy.

Now in my case the pain from the cough has moved down my back away from the lungs to the rear abdomen. Medicine of choice when I am sick is halls cough drops, baby aspirins and an extra blanket or two to re-experience the sweat lodge sensations. As for Doctors, alas too expensive, we must have faith in the Idols of the Tribe to heal us.

The 0 and 16 Cleveland Browns and our own spotted career in the Sport

The 0 and 16 Cleveland Browns and our own spotted career in the Sport

fiction
edward w pritchard


Watching the wide receiving's sorrowful consolation sitting alone on the bench after dropping the important simple pass in yesterdays big local football loss helping to result in an 0 and 16 season for the local pro team the Cleveland Browns has triggered reminisces of my own spotted career in the sport of football.

Before we tried out and joined an official youth football team we played in the backyards often in the snow a sort of organized fun fighting. It was tough going as often some of our opponents would be six or eight years older than us. That was the half the fun part.

Then we were the local pee wee team. With half a dozen dedicated and strict coaches we practiced everyday after school from 6PM to dark and then walked about a mile home alone. Along with the physical and pain part of the contact sport a lot of brain work was involved because we used some of the most innovative plays in our strategies of the most successful College teams in the Country. Once on a cross field pass I cut right instead of left when I was wide open and the ball went sailing the other way. It was a critical play and I felt panicked. Next play however the quarterback who was a little older than me and the coaches son called a similar play but instead of a pass to me the speedy half back also a couple of years older than me sped around the end of the line and I cut the wrong way again as ordered and we scored the winning touchdown in a close critical game. Memorable to me as well, a few weeks later at school one of our offensive lineup was catching hell from our six grade teacher, a crabby woman, for his arms being dirty. Turns out they were bruises up and down his arms. Back then none of us used arm pads. It was tough going but we loved it.

We were the City champs in high school and after a lot of work becoming a starter I was to run head first over and over as middle lineman into one of the best running backs in the State. He went on to play a little pro football. I didn't even make it to College ball but with a strong set of legs, weak head and stout heart I did my job once I made the first team a third of the way through the season. Seems like from then on in my life I was constantly trying out. Once even my own beloved teammates turned on me. It's a bit complicated why my good buds would be so mad at me but in a nutshell I was editor of the school paper and one of our female reporters had called us football players sissies for needing new carpeting on the floor of our locker-room. The booster club had bought it for us and the teams for the next dozen years, the reporter was playing investigate newsman, and I took no notice of the article. My pals turned on me suddenly and viciously. But, thanks to our star player, a square shooting type guy from the neighborhood who went on to play pro football and be a famous coach, by the moniker of Gary Pinkel, sticking by me, things blew over for me without a lynching.

I played a lot of pick up basketball after high school and in college made the all State church league team which was a team  designed to bring one closer to God  when women and sin beckoned. Sadly no more organized football  for me. About a half dozen times a group of us men played tackle with no equipment for a couple hours after work until dark until I had to quit because I had to help watch the kids at Home. Once I played in a reunion game but didn't enjoy it much by then at age 28.

I am no longer a dedicated fan of pro football but yesterday I watched about an hour of the Cleveland Browns last game in an 0 and 16 to season. I remember back in 1959, 1962 or 63 when  old Paul Brown would coach the Browns to victory after victory. We would go to one of the older guys houses along the canal and play in the freezing cold in his backyard and he would run in and out of the house with an update on the scores of the Browns game. No online internet for scores back then.

In my own way I will always be a fan of my local team and will always have soft place in my heart for football. I loved the violence, the camaraderie  and the allure of the sport.