The World of Grandpa Don  

T here are three more poems added to the "My Father Wrote ... " pages this week.
A Matter of Taste moves from romance (last week) to the practicality of courting or just enjoying the company of the young ladies. But the final line points to reality.

The Hobo Angel is the first of Al Copeland's whimsical poems to be published here. What do you do when you get to Heaven and it doesn't fit your lifestyle? The big surprise is that with your lifestyle you made it to Heaven! Everything you want is yours for just the wish, so even though you'r back on earth for a visit you can't even do the things that you did during your life. For my part, I'm not concerned ... I'll do my best to adjust. But, some of the younger visitors out there may not know the term "hobo". The hobo lifestyle was quite evident in the early part of the 20th century. My mom worked for a small printing firm and one of her coworkers was a man who worked during the winter and was a hobo all summer, traveling in empty box cars all over the country and spending the nights in hobo camps or getting a bed for 25¢ in a "flop house" if it was raining. Some couldn't find or keep a job. Some were just low budget adventurers. Some were hobos by choice and some by necessity. Now we call them the Homeless people.

A Tom Fooler Rhyme continues the whimsical  theme. It doesn't make sense but that's OK. It brings a smile and I love it. My father was probably inspired by the words of Steven Foster's "O Susana" and he did a great job in his juxtaposition of words and situations showing him as a master and  a juggler of the English language. As silly as it is, Al concludes with a truism and what could be a serious thought with Heaven as a place where people remain together. I wonder about the fact that Al's mother had died just 11 days after his birth. He and his father moved in with his grandparents but when his father married a second time Al remained with his grandparents while his father and new wife raised their subsequent children sans Al. Did his father, consciously or unconsciously blame him for for his mother's death? Or was it just a practical matter ... that he was comfortable with his grandparents, so why disrupt things? Oh my, conjecture again! Oh well.  

I missed the boat, so to speak. The alarm had me up at 6:30 which normally gives ample time on these Tuesdays but as I emerged from the comfort of my bed I heard the big truck and the sound of the big plastic containers hitting the concrete.  Waste Management had changed their schedule and I was late. The truck for the recycle pickup was long gone by the time I was dressed. I did get the garbage container out in time for it's truck but it looks like I'll be putting the containers out on Monday nights from now on. I had avoided leaving the containers at the curb overnight so as not to place temptation in the face of late night vandals but I guess I'll leave it up to them to resist temptation and be good citizens.

On the other hand, Barbara has been arriving a bit later, closer to 8:00 AM. That of course presents no problem. She took advantage of the warmer spring day and washed the outside of the windows. I took a brief walk out to the garden but temperatures in the low 50's are still too cool for me especially with the stiff breeze. But the perennials are showing their sprouts with the decorative grass and daylilies in the lead. A pair of rabbits were frolicking in the yard with the male, I assume, leaping high in the air trying to impress the female with his agility. I sent Mikey out to put a stop to that. Call me spoilsport!

I invested some time in web site maintenance this week, adding more pages to the tracking system. The problem is that sometimes I not only add the code but get slowed down re-reading interesting pages. One in particular caught my attention since it depicted the era in which my parents were born.( See 1902.) Another item, is a short poem describing the miracle of spring and our take-it-for-granted attitude. (see No One Clapped )

But, ... A poem that touches my heart ... brings a tear ... and should be framed and placed in a prominent place ... is the one named ... "I Hurt" Short, to the point, profound ... at least to me.

The temperature finally hit and briefly surpassed 70⁰ on Wednesday. After lunch Mikey and I went out to the shed and I got my big branch clipper. It has about a 1" jaw and 18" handles. When the lawn guys aerated the lawn last week one of the machines got tangled in a surface root, pulling a segment up out of the ground. They had some difficulty in getting the machine loose from it and I expected them to cut it free but apparently they had no tool capable of the job. So, with considerable effort I clipped it at the two ends emerging from the turf. There are several others emerging from the grass but I don't have the strength in my arms to clip them off so they will need to wait for one of the young bulls to clip them. Having sufficient exertion for the day a cup of coffee was procured from the kitchen and I retired to the swing. It is somewhat protected from the wind there and a pleasant break from the house. A stiff breeze is bringing the warm air from the south and although welcome, it is not condusive to relaxation and reading in the gazebo. Later in the afternoon I went out to the swing again as my mom used to say, "to blow the stink off me" and the wind did a journeyman's job of that.

The poor man is not he who is without a cent, but he who is without a dream. ~ Harry Kemp

The tax season is over and Anne Marie is back to "Normal". She only worked half the day on Wednesday and they drove to Normal, Illinois to see Joe's ballgame that evening. Joe, as usual did fine but the team, in theist consistency, lost. Their regular season ends this weekend and there will be no post season play for them. Where ever the Albano's go, they meet people they know. Sometimes it is players, and there are always parents, fans, or coaches. I suppose it is that way with "fans" of every sport or activity. Anne Marie and Dom always have someone to converse with  in the stands and baseball news to share.

Bible study was spirited in conversation as we are into the letters of John. Attendance was light but maybe the missing ones were following TV coverage of the Pope's Mass in Washington. At its conclusion I ran into a friend, Jim Ahern. who was conducting some business at the parish office. Jim was a young teacher at Leo High school when I was a student there. We each went our separate ways and the friendship came about as he, I and our wives were active at St Julie parish. Since we attend mass at different times we seldom meet so there was much to discuss. After all these years he still teaches, now young pupils in the Religious Education program at church and he is active helping people through his membership in the St Vincent DePaul Society. It was good to talk to him and I sent him off with a (((HUG))) for his Anne.

Shortly after lunch, as I was sorting out my meds into their containers for the next seven days ... Morning, noon and supper time with a compartment for each day, ... Paula called to let me know that Mikey was ready to come home. After picking him up, trimmed, clean and smelling "foofy" I went out to the garden and up righted one of the angels who had attempted to fly in the previous day's wind, planting her firmly in the ground. It was delightful out there and so after giving my little friend his dinner later on, I retired to the gazebo with my new book and a snifter of B&B. It was warmer out than predicted with just a slight hint of breeze. The clouds had dispersed and I moved one of my "winter" gazebo chairs into the sunlit side of the structure. A robin was calling to attract a mate and it was as delightful as it was peaceful. The only interruption was the sound of a motorcycle, his owner releasing his testosterone through the un-muffled exhaust of his machine, but that in itself is a sure sign of spring and was welcomed as such. I finished the first chapter of "A New Earth" soaking it in, definitely a different approach  to the mysteries of life as we know it. Its language is plain enough but has great depth and that suits me fine.

Our Pope, during his visit to the US, has reminded us of the need to guard against the evils of allowing anyone to harm our children but particularly those in authority and especially religious authority. He speaks of the "shame" of it in the church and it occurs to me that part of our problem, all of us, is that we have lost our sense of shame. We speak as if "coming out of the closet" is a good thing. I refer not to just the "gay" thing but to the effort to legitimatize and even glorify all kinds of  actions and behavior long considered to be anti-social or, if I can use the word, sinful. I do not advocate the return to hellfire and brimstone religion. You don't bring people to a God of Love through fear. Back in 2002 I wrote my feelings about the Abuse problem in the church. My feeling have not changed and you may read about them in How Could I Go Back?

I'm all shook up! Well, not really. I may have been but the earth quake didn't wake me so I didn't know about it until I watched the morning news. For me, the only unusual event of the night was that Mikey got me up at 2 AM to go out. That is rare. Did he have a premonition? I doubt it But ..?  I only felt an earthquake on one occasion. It was in the 60's when I was working alone on a Saturday in the Kelso-Burnett office on the 11th floor of the Brooks Building in downtown Chicago. It wasn't a bad jolt but I was frightened. I knew I was in an old masonry building with tile arch floors. These floors had been known to have failed just from a heavy weight on them. But that was 50 years ago and the brooks building still stands, as do I. A little shaky sometimes but we endure.

Peace be to you. ...

We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different, and yet the same. ~ Anne Frank