Today’s Haiku:
Golden leaf
Whips wildly in the wind
Clinging for last goodbye.
On Being A Seven Times Grandfather
Tomorrow, my seventh grandchild, Alexander Enrico Vallecillo, will celebrate his two weeks birthday. He has made good progress in getting used to this old world. He has developeded the art of complaining, a sure sense of where his sustenance is to be found and he is now pooping on schedule. I bring this event up because I like being a grandfathr. Seven tmes I have been lavished with congratualations. The parents are lauded too, of cousrse, but they are so taken up with the wonderful new responsibility thrust upon them, they have little time to savor the plaudits. Three of these grandchildren are no more than two so my chances of seeing them to maturity are somewhat slim given that I am almost 92. The teenagers are already trying to sort out colleges so the pleasure of seeing them grow up has been mine. But not to fret, I will see cuteness and fun from the little ones to brighten my old age.
On Impulse
How many times have each of us acted on impulse, sometimes not to our best interests. It happened eighty years ago and he was dead before I could open my mouth to shout. Although I have forgotten his name (Let’s say its Jim), I’ve never forgotten that awful gash in his head from the train wheel.
“She’s going too fast,” said the stationmaster, and Jim nodded in agreement. “Guess I won’t go to town today.” Then goaded by some hidden impulse he made a run and grabbed at a ladder rung. His foot missed the bottom step, the speed of the train flung his body in between the boxcars, tearing loose his grip, letting him fall to the rails below. The next day at lunch in our one-room school I was the center of questions as being the only school kid who saw the whole affair. Miss Tetrick was wiping her eyes and I said “Let’s go play some catch.” We used to tease her about him being her beau. I guess he was.
It happened so fast no one really could be sure how. The bicyclist speeding downgrade, whipped around the lowered gates. Someone shouted, “Stop! Stopl” The rider angled across the tracks to go round the opposite gate as if to taunt the oncoming train. The engine clipped the bike’s rear wheel, so close was the rider to making it across. The bike flipped around to the side of the engine slamming the rider’s head against it.
It was this second event that brought up the memory of the first. The fact each acted on a sudden impulse to challenge a train, though years apart, and that impulse lead to their death, a reminder how easy it is to be our own destructors.
Today’s Poem:
Moon’s Day
There were five angels sitting on my doorstep
This morning, none of whom could speak English
But then neither could I so we got along fine.
I mentioned I had just learned about my ancestor,
The flat worm, and how much I owed
Him/her for the invention of sex,
They told the phases of the moon for me
And how they affect women’s ovaries
And sometimes drive men mad.
This from five angels who couldn’t speak English.