Watching Midsomer Murders...a woman has been working on her book ms. for thirty years. Handwritten. Very large stack of papers.
At the end of the show, her friend, now a murderess, learns the book has been finished and sold for Pots of Money. The murderess asks what it's about...the writer smiles and states "US". Car rolls away taking the guilty to jail.
So, since they were apparently such great friends that someone could write a book about them, I wondered whether, since I have a best friend,and we've been through so many things together and separately, I could make a book out of our lives.
My part would be dead boring, outside of the odd operations, the kids, the husband, the 350 men I dated, but little else that would interest anyone.
My friend, however, has met Monte Rock. And Fabio.
She's come 'round to painting again, and she does have talent.
She has a husband and a son and now daughter in law.
But, there still doesn't seem to be much there worth a book that would sell.
Our memories are ours alone.
Should anyone ask about anything, both of us gladly regale them with stories. But they're small stories. Interesting, funny, sad, but in the larger scheme of life, small.
San, you know I love you dearly. Perhaps one day I will write a small book of our little stories, just for us, before my memory is completely gone.
Last night, I tried desperately to get to sleep, so I tried praying. I tried not thinking. I tried not thinking about ghosts and Jesus on the cross.
I was so desperate, I thought of my favorite movies, and making a list of ten of them, just to see if it would bore me to sleep.
Well, it is after 5 pm and I just got around to writing the list, if I can remember those I chose. No particular order, either.
1. Rocky
2. Forbidden Planet
3. Alexander Nevsky
4. The Philadelphia Story
5. Harvey
6. Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid
7. We Bought a Zoo
8. The Longest Day
9. Knights of Hollywood
10. Star Wars, the first one,which is the third one
I must admit that I forgot what I'd thought of around #7. #9 Might be Hollywood Knights. Alexander Nevsky is a silent Russian movie with one scene where he leads the whole Swedish army onto a frozen lake and they crash through the ice and die, thus saving Russia from Swedish domination. Funny, that.
Movies are meant to take one away from the here and now. Every one of these movies does that for me.
Volare! Oh, oh!
Most of you reading this won't know who Gene Autry was.
The Singing Cowboy.
Back in the late 40s and ealy 50s, he was a big deal. Not as cool as Roy Rogers, but close enough. He had a radio show and later a TV show. His horse's name was Champion and he had an assortment of sidekicks in the movies and small screen.
He was mild in manner, a straight shooter, every thing a red blooded American kid wanted to be.
But, he was a singer. He made kid songs we could sing along with. He took Jesus out of holidays and made reindeer and jelly beans what you looked forward to after suffering through a long boring church service (especially if it was in Latin.)
Here's how he sang about Easter:
https://youtu.be/DYY5jFnkX5g
Jelly beans for Tommy, colored eggs for sister Sue. There's an orchid for your Mommy and an Easter bonnet, too.
That was MY youth.
White gloves, light coat, new scratchy dress and hat with a fake flower or two on it.
And Mass. In Latin. That lasted forever, with the story of the crucifixion and resurrection that took about two hours.
Nicer to think about bunnies and chocolate.
Moving right along, he also took care of Christmas. He had a couple of Christmas songs...one about Santy Claus and the famous one about Rudolph.
https://youtu.be/X_OGX3jT2pA
I was a kid. It was the 50s. You went to church every Sunday. You went to catechism. You prayed, you went to confession after you were seven. You made communion religiously. God was always watching.
And then along came Gene Autry.
I don't know whether Roy Rogers, the King of the Cowboys, sang secular holiday songs, but I know Gene knocked 'em off regularly.
If kids don't know about Jesus suffering, about celebrating His life and not candy, of feeling sad on Good Friday and wearing new scratchy clothes, you have to blame Gene.
Please go to YouTube and check out these links. It was hard for me to get there.
Went to the orthodontist yesterday. He was surprised the teeth hadn't moved more, because he had me on a fast track.
I would have asked what he meant by that, but my mouth was full of someone else's fingers and sharp metal spikes digging into my persona. flesh.
This morning, while applying more wax to the sharp stuff, I noticed that the front tooth that stuck out so much didn't seem to stick out so much. The bands were replaced yesterday, teeth felt painful and still do, but it looked as if that one booger tooth might have moved back into line a little.
On the bottom, that one tooth that was sort of behind appears to be even more behind. Made me think of Nanny McPhee.
I'm too old for this shit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzJgH9KJEYo
Recently, my hometown, the one where I grew up and went to school, made a Facebook group. I signed on, though most of the friends were from much later dates. I finished high school in 1967. Most of these folks, not all but some, were more in the late 80s class. I hardly know them, except perhaps by their maiden or last names, if at all.
But this morning I had a bad memory that I am compelled to write about. Somehow, the news today brought this person to mind.
It creeped me out.
There was a family who lived across the lake from where I lived. Many classmates lived on that side and we went to Pierce School together. It was torn down before they put up the plaque saying I had gone there....
I digress, as usual.
There was a parochial school in our town, and a good many kids went there. Because I didn't go there, I didn't really know too many kids who went there, unless I saw them at church or hanging around the playground in the summer.
There was one family, though, that I knew because my friend Sally knew them. For privacy sake, I will not use the last name, though I remember it.
There were three boys and a father...I'd see them at Mass every Sunday, marching in file. The father looked like a military man and the boys behaved in a Catholic school manner.
And there was a daughter.
I believe she was the youngest.
She toed the mark as well, but there was more to it.
She apparently was in control of the household. After all, she was a girl.
Rumor had it that her mother died giving birth to her, but I am not sure.
This girl looked...how can I put it? Downtrodden.
A nest of dull hair, plain features, grim expression on her lips and face.
Now that I think of it, she always appeared to be wearing boys' clothing.
She was famous or infamous for riding around town, away from the western end where she lived, on a sturdy bicycle. Wearing a turned down Navy cap, baggy jackets, leather shoes.
Another rumor claimed she had a knife in her socks.
I never spoke to her. Never really saw her except for at church or riding away from her home.
All the descriptions above are true...the rumors and observations may not be. Who is there to contradict me?
I'll tell you one thing...I hope she is happy. Maybe two, three years younger than I am, so she's old enough to have grandchildren, if she ever had kids and that happily ever after stuff.
Thinking of what she may have gone through, based solely on her appearance and rumor, put me in mind of more of a horror story than anything else.
The world is ugly now. It was ugly back in the 50s. Ugly in the 60s. Even uglier in the 70s.
Those thoughts of what might have been her life may not be true in any way, but my 2019 mind can't help but wonder if she was wounded so severely that she never had a chance to bloom and be happy.
I wish I could find out.
