the train doesn't run to Gettysburg anymore

the Train doesn't run to Gettysburg anymore

fiction
edward w pritchard

The owner told us the train doesn't run to Gettysburg any more a while back so we walk back and forth from East Canton, Ohio over to Gettysburg, Pa on old route 30 with all the paraphernalia for our small circus. The townies don't like circus folks so mostly we travel at night.

Sometimes I walk with the two white elephants for company me being lonely a lot. I enjoy a clear sky for stargazing but a light rain is more than fine also. The rain on the hilly pavement is good companionship and is nice white noise to the clump of the elephants steady steps. Hannibal got elephants over the Alps in winter.

Usually I wear a small backpack with my personal items in it and carry a small old fashion slate chalkboard and two pieces of yellow chalk to write myself  important notes of things I don't want to forget.

There isn't much traffic on 30 these days but a couple of years ago I remember a car went whizzing by with a song on the radio by old Tampa Red  "when things go wrong with you it hurts me too"; ever since  I often hear that old song in my head when I am walking at night. Tampa Red was light skinned and often played a kazoo along with his primitive slide guitar.

If we are trudging up a long hill on a dark night sometimes I will write down a girls name I used to know with my chalk I carry on my small chalk board so I don't forget her and then when I get to the top of the grade I eventually erase her name and put the chalk and chalk board back in my backpack. Doctors say its good for the heart to walk up long steep hills course they do it themselves in a nice car.

Later tonight we should cross the Ohio river on the Jennings bridge. Route 30 only runs for four miles in West Virginia so that part of the trip is a short walk. Coming or going R 30 in WV is no trouble at all.

today is June 16th a most significant day

today is June 16th a most significant day

fiction
edward w pritchard

Today is June 16th a most significant day. Significant that is in Ireland for June 16th 1904 is celebrated year after year because that's the day writer James Joyce chose to have Leopold Bloom spend one extraordinary long day on June 16th 1904; now known as Bloomsday in Dublin Ireland.

You remember the book " Ulysses"; no American has ever finished the novel. Still even here it is acknowledged  as a masterpiece.

June 16th 2020 is a drag here in America.  Covid 19 disrupting the economy, rioting and protests,
and opinion polls today showing only 14% of Americans are extraordinarily happy this June 16th 2020.

Lets go back to 1904.

it shall be so

it shall be so

fiction
edward w pritchard

When are protesters and marchers a mob? Read Shakespeare's" Coriolanus" or if you are not inclined
to read watch Ralph Fiennes trial before the people on you tube's "Coriolanus" clip.

It shall be so say the good citizens.

there's only one american who can end this endless rioting

there's only one american who can end this endless rioting

fiction
edward w pritchard

There is only one american who can end this endless rioting. That is Benjamin Butler the Civil War  union major General and he has been dead for over a century. Look it up on wiki. Butler was an expert on stopping riots and insurrections in American cities in the 1860's. On the battlefield against armed troops his reputation was not so good.

Who will stop the violence and looting in our cities now that Benjamin Butler has passed On?

Let's stop the violence.

supporting characters

supporting characters

fiction
edward w pritchard

When the social order temporarily breaks down in a time of mass social crisis one of the first things we eventually notice is that the supporting characters that furnish the background noise that fill our lives mysteriously disappear. Perhaps there is an economic reason and perhaps it is well known to the properly educated but I don't know the explanation.

If your groceries are going to be chosen unseen at the store and delivered by a faceless amazon delivery driver to your porch while his vehicle blocks  half the road in front of your house for your neighbors why shouldn't he be a robot or intelligent machine?

global awareness

global awareness

fiction
edward w pritchard

Wouldn't it be nice if every world government would order every source of light in the world to be turned off one clear night for a few hours so everyone could see the milky war galaxy as our ancestors did.

What a Gaia moment of hyper awareness that would be.

lock down frenzy

lock down frenzy

fiction
edward w pritchard

Wash hands 
retreat to Venice in darkness on gondola wearing cracked ceramic masks
hiding face from self
drench hands with sanitizer pulling fingers through  hair
isolation dissolves the Herd
Strangers intimately forgotten