One of Those Days by Joy Gagliano

From my Friend Joy, who lives in the country and enjoys contemplation. 

Today, the sun is out, forest and gardens freshened and damp.
A rare, late heat snap gripped our area for the last week or so.
So, last nights steady rainfall and fifteen degree drop in temperature were gifts bestowed from the nature gods. Greedily accepted.
I sit on the porch, enjoying the air, color and sunshine. As I soak in the day, I realize it it the first  day. Weather wise, of the start of fall. A semi sweet realization.
Harvest has begun, farmers, gardeners and chipmunks are gathering the summers fruits.
The smells in the air are earthy and full, leaves, some, giving up their green for gold and brown..
Others falling to decorate the mosses.
It is like early evening in the scope of the year of seasons.
On a good day, looking back  on our hours,  to see the fruits we have gathered is rewarding. Comforting.
We shall sleep well.
Yet, in the early evening, we know night is coming. The end of a glorious day, and at times, hard to leave such  a satiating day, but we have no choice, no control..which, for me, is oddly comforting.
Hoping the morrow will give us the same.. Yet knowing, the march is toward the dark night.
And must be gone thru to wake to the mornings.
I love sitting on my porch.

  ~~ Joy

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And here's another porch, in another season--the one that's coming. 

Take a moment to appreciate these golden September mornings!   ~~ Juliet

PINK SATIN PLATFORM HEELS ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD by OrB Weaver

~When the stars align correctly, Cronehenge receives a message from OrB Weaver.~

***

 



PINK SATIN PLATFORM HEELS

ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD

 

              It was a very long winter in Southern Delaware.  So, its early summer and I finally get out for a drive early one morning with no specific destination in mind: just to relish in the cool morning air after days of wet heat.  I leave the house at a relatively early (for me) hour, around 7 a.m. to beat the heat.  And oh, it’s Sunday.

              This is rural Southern Delaware in an area commonly known as Long Neck.  It is half way between Millsboro to the West, and Lewes to the East.  Now, I very rarely have the need (nor the temper for the tourists, those morons) to go to Lewes, and so my primary route of travel is on the same road, but in the opposite direction.  State Route 24 runs from Lewes to Millsboro, where it crosses Route 113 and becomes something else on the other side at some point.  Three years and I have not quite figured out the country roads.  Anyway, I run the miles mostly between Long Neck and Millsboro to 113 for doctors, my library, Lowes, Fulton Bank and lots of family restaurants.  It’s the best way to get from one side of the state to the other, but ... it’s two lanes, mostly passing restricted (which stops no one), but with quite a few areas that allow passing for brief sections.  As a result, it has the highest fatality rate of any Delaware state road.  That’s quite an accomplishment.  Misplaced, but notable.    

              On this particular morning there was quite a bit of fairy fog lying in the low field areas and in low-lying woodland.  The sun was shining, reflecting off the mist, and everything was covered in soft sparkles of light.  Just as I move into a curve into an area of woods, on the side of the road I see something ...  no, two things ... lying there, obviously discarded from a vehicle, two platform high heel satin strap pumps in what the ‘50s used

 to be called “Titty Pink,” and omigod, it was a note from the Cosmos.

First and foremost, now I know there is at least one other person as totally spontaneous and psychotic as I am.  Hooray for my side.  Bless you sister, I wish I knew who you are.  But it will have to be enough to know that at least one time, in an absolute fury of independence, I can see  you in my  mind’s eye, a word, a look, a ‘tsk’ pointed towards you, you took OFF those ComeFuckMe shoes and heaved’em out a car window, because you had come to the end of the line of ridicule, abuse, torture, hypocrisy, or because the wedding was such a flop, you  actually felt some blame, so you tossed them to restore some balance in your universe.  I threw my shoes out the car window at 70 miles per hour, bright forest green satin, the guy behind me in the semi was surely waiting for the body.  But that was my freedom gesture.  And shoes make a statement.  Shoes are like ... “I’d rather go barefoot than walk one more foot in these shoes that I wouldn’t wear if it weren’t for you ...”

              So to say I had an immediate kinship with the former owner of those magnificent shoes (think Joan Crawford, think early Bette Davis, or Lana Turner), because shoes say it all.  And she was certainly giving some man a big  FUCK YOU.  The only reason we wear those tortuous designs is because it is part of female DNA, programmed to believe that shoes actually sell sex.  And, yes.  They do.  And we allow it to continue, because even if we accept it’s bad for us, it’s always been fun to be bad.

              You go, girl, you of the pink platforms.  I almost went back and retrieved them, but I thought, no, that’s none of my business and I shouldn’t interfere in what was so obviously a very strong signal to someone.  So I left them there in the hope that everyone will wonder and everyone will have a story, but you have sent a clear message of being just plain fed up.  You get mad enough, anything’s possible.  Even something good.

              Or, of course, you might have just hated the shoes. 

 

Orb Weaver

July 8, 2015

MAY DAY -- and Miss Gottlieb

It's May Day, just one day past Nanina Gottlieb's birthday. She's the lady who, 30+ years ago, entered my life and changed it permanently--for good or ill. I should know by this time that regret over things past is pointless. For this little life excursion, Card Number One of the Tarot-The Fool-was me.

I'd been in the habit of dancing and singing along with "Blue Jean" by David Bowie, at the top of my lungs, functioning as stress relief. Our family had recently moved to PA and both my husband and I had not found the excellent jobs we'd enjoyed working while in TN. Here, going to work was a bore and a grind--whether it was corporate culture, local culture, or just us--I'm not sure exactly how to describe it, but the office just wasn't any kind of "happy place." The chorus of Bowie's hit song was what attracted me: "...Somebody send me!" I danced every night when I got home, singing "somebody send me!" like a prayer, imagining that something in an oppressive landscape would change.

Something did. I'd seen Amadeus over the winter and got hooked on Mozart's music. Not only that, but just the idea of him, too. History junkie that I am, I'd begun to read about him, to search used book stores for anything about him, to buy his music and hunt for videotapes of his operas. In the midst of this, while chained to a desk like a dog every work day, I'd come down with pneumonia.

After finally admitting the illness, I took some days off to try to recover. I didn't want to, because new workers are not really allowed to get sick and women are pretty much expected to fold under the pressure, so, naturally, this is unrelenting.

One bright beautiful day, I was still desperately ill, but wanted to feel the sunshine I saw shining through the windows. I was too weak to stand upright for very long, so I lay down on the warm cement of the porch. From here, I looked up into precious squirrels' ears leaves. I put some Mozart into the Walkman I'd carried out, and from there, sent his notes into my head.

Somebody send me...

 Our grassy yard was gay with wild violets. The red and yellow tulips were in full bloom. That's when she came to me, through fever and a blue, blue sky. Warm breeze on my skin, spring in my eyes, Mozart in my ears--and Miss Gottlieb, whispering, telling me the story she'd kept to herself for such a long time.

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It was a story of passion, art,  obsession, and, finally, of separation from reality. Following her, and just as she had, I went to that place, too, for I embraced the solitary life and followed this old dream of being a writer.

Life being what it is, it hasn't ended well in every way, but, as the Amish say, "You'll have this."

At least I've told her story, think what you will of either of us. Following the Muse, a.k.a. The Triple Goddess, back to her cave, is bound to end badly a la La Belle Dame sans Merci, but, hell, we're all born to wither and die. Face it, nobody's story ends happily.

For a little while, here on earth, Nanina and I had the Joy of Art, of knowing through and through, a rare slice of the motionless perfection at the heart of things, the blue sky blue eye ecstasy. Think I'll just  leave it at that.

~Thanks to Bobbi Merchant, http://itpsites.com/

 

~~ Juliet Waldron

ABOUT HAMILTON

 

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It’s no mistake that people have discovered Hamilton again, that least known, most difficult to appreciate, and perhaps the most personally conflicted of America’s Founding Fathers. Less a politician than a matchless administrator, Hamilton was a leader who actually seems to have believed the things he said, a man who did not use his time in government to feather his own nest.  He was a modern man in many ways, self-made, without family or fortune, but with a nuts and bolts understanding the new science of economics, the realities of international trade, of money and banking. The men Hamilton worked beside, men like Washington and Jefferson, were American aristocrats, slave owners, whose power base lay in land. Jefferson, particularly, took an almost feudal view, imagining a new nation comprised of large landowners who would rule over a laboring class of sharecroppers and slaves.

Hamilton’s political enemies, busy calling his patriotism into question, conveniently overlooked the fact that his character was what contemporaries called "Quixotic", like a knight strayed in from some earlier age. At the start of the Revolution, he gave his hard-won college money to outfit a rebel artillery company. He crossed the Delaware with George Washington as a foot-sore captain, freezing and hungry beside his men. During the war, he was the kind of officer who led from the front, and also the kind who intervened when his soldiers, still hot from battle, wanted to summarily execute their prisoners.  As an aide-de-camp, he served his boss George Washington selflessly and tirelessly, becoming the perfect secretary/assistant to a beleaguered general with few other such brilliant props upon which to lean. After the war, in his new incarnation as attorney, he was not afraid to defend ex-loyalists whose property had been illegally seized by vengeful neighbors. Hamilton also advocated for ordinary men, like a humble ferry owner, whipped and bullied by a local landlord. Law, Hamilton said, should be dealt alike to all citizens—whether rich or poor.

For a brief time, he even may have dreamed, during the heady first years after America’s founding, that we could have a “pure” government, one without party, because servants of this new republic would be genuinely ‘public-spirited’. After all, if a person wished only the common good—as opposed to only ‘good’ for ones’ friends-- using the ancient tools of common law, common sense and ordered debate, pragmatic, mutually agreeable solutions would, naturally, emerge. ‘The People’ (as then defined) could govern themselves, not only without the aid of king or dictator, but without special interest groups, too. 

But Hamilton was also an outsider, an immigrant, a “come here,” a fact his enemies never forgot or forgave. Worse, he was born illegitimate, and arrived as an orphaned charity child. He was called slightingly, a “Creole,” or, with franker hostility, by John Adams, “the bastard brat of a Scots peddler.”  This is the trope which has moved Hamilton back into public consciousness. Lin-Manuel Miranda, a multi-talented first generation American, is making a big splash with a hip-hop opera at The Public Theater in NYC.  I learned about this exciting theater piece around the time I’d begun re-editing a 15 year old “in-the- drawer” book—The Master Passion—but this unlikely form of interest truly cheered me. Now, someone young, gifted, and vocal now wanted to talk about my hero, too!

After all, Hamilton has been in my life since I was ten. I’d early learned that he’d worked against slavery, and that, like the wandering lost prince of all the old stories, he’d come to the ‘Kingdom’ with nothing but the brilliant head on his shoulders. As a teen, he fought for freedom. He’d won the respect of the commanding general and gained the hand of a local ‘princess’. He’d spent the rest of his life devising ways to make his adopted country well-governed, rich and happy, fighting like one possessed in order to get brilliant—but far-less well-informed and/or insightful associates—to understand and accept his financial systems. The simplest way to say it: If Alexander Hamilton hadn’t created a plan to unite those thirteen colonies by getting them to pay the debts incurred to fighting men—and to the businessmen who’d backed the war of independence—there would be no United States today.  Then as now, nation or family, paying the bills is essential to safety and security, the base from which all creative endeavor and industry flows.

Unavoidably, though, Hamilton was also a man of his time, one scarred by violence, poverty and humiliation. He was a genius and could be vain and brash, impatient with slower minds. He injured and embarrassed his family and friends with a sordid love-affair. He talked too much when he should have remained silent. His insecurities and his anger toward the enemies who'd dragged him through the mud triggered the political missteps which destroyed his own Federalist party. Hamilton might even be thought of as a man who engineered his own death.

Beyond all that, he remains--to me and others--a true tragic hero, a great man beset with fatal flaws. If Alexander Hamilton hadn’t come here, hadn’t fought, practiced law, been one of those critical first public servants,  there would be no United States today.

Bibliography ~ partial

 

Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow ISBN: 1594200092 Penguin, 2005

The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, 21 volumes, Harold C. Syrett, Ed., Columbia University, 1987

Founding Brothers by Joseph L. Ellis, ISBN: 9780375405440, Knopf, 2000

Hamilton by Forrest McDonald, ISBN: 9780393300482, W.W. Norton, 1988

Alexander Hamilton and the Constitution, by Clinton L. Rossiter, Harcourt, Brace, ISBN: 9780151042159, 1964

 

~~Juliet Waldron

The Maple on Pleasure Road

A February wind was blowing down from Canada. Over great lakes, mountains, cities, and forests, it blasted through an empty spot on Pleasure Road where a Maple tree had once stood. The molecules of forest exhalations felt the lack of form in this place, an echo of the tree that stood here until recently. Recognizing his spirit, they paused and hummed an old tune, a song that only trees know. Within that tune, they added a note of invitation saying he had many brothers and sisters in the northern forests. Then they rocketed on toward distant places, carried by the maelstrom of Boreus, the North wind.
                The spirit of the Maple shuddered awake. He had dreamt more than heard the sounds above him, though he recognized the whispers of his kind. The nightmare of his recent death, that is the death of his trunk and leafy arms, still rasped along his consciousness and raced down his roots like fire. He would have ignored the upper world and slept on in his earthen bed, but the faintest tickle of waking seeds around him kindled his desire for the spring push. Uncurling his spirit self from the fetal shape of his retreat, he rose through the ragged stump and pile of sawdust of his former self and looked at the world above.  
                A thin skin of snow raced along the grass and sidewalk. Between the houses, it rose and circled back to the ground. The pavement of the street that covered half his roots was dry and speckled with salt. He had been forced to drink the dissolving salt for weeks. Well, he wouldn’t have to drink it now. Slowly, he focused his awareness on the house that stood closest to his place. They had imagined that they owned him, but at least tried to be kind to him.
               About twenty years ago, the first awareness he had had of his “owners,” as separate from the many people who came and went beneath his boughs, was of their frequent circuits on the paths they took around him. The man walked between the car he parked just north of the Maple’s trunk at least four times every day; the woman’s path and vehicle lay just to the west of the man’s. Once he had singled them out as regular passersby, he grew familiar with their steps, scents, and finally the electricity that pulsed around them. He knew the colors of their inner lives - the shades of happiness, sadness, grief, love and anger they emanated like grounded stars. They lived a frenzied, changeable life he found fascinating as well as alien to his own constant presence and slow transformations.
                Then there came the little human who began as a tiny bud, always attached to one of its parents. He watched the rapid metamorphosis of their sapling with astonishment. The little boy went from a bundle of fuzzy wrappings to a tottering ball of light with chubby legs and arms in only two seasons. The tree’s own progeny – had the humans ever allowed them to grow – would have taken twice the time to grow so tall. As much as he enjoyed seeing the little person, he finally understood how deeply resentment ran in his soul when the parents raked up his seeds and carried them away or uprooted his own children from their denuded patches of soil. The soft touches and appreciative looks of this human family did very little to assuage his anger at their hateful practices. They knew the very fulfillment they denied him.
                So he began to rebel against them. His trunk expanded and roots strengthened until he pushed the concrete of their walks up and tore at the roadway’s edges. He ran his small roots up into the grass and small patches of flowers and bushes they planted in his space. Then he sucked every drop of moisture and particle of food out of the soil while releasing a subtle poison that stunted the plants. It was a war he could not win, since they fought back with sharp weapons, and water, and fertilizer. Still, the fight gave him release from the pain that ran through his blood, the sap that woke him every spring.
                Age finally mellowed the old Maple. The rush of spring’s elixir weakened. Autumn winds carried more twigs away, winter dried his bark. The assault of insects carved out holes in his body, and his limbs began to wither and die. Finally, the green of moss and grey of scaly lichens wound around him and starved his body. He no longer felt such anger at the family because his desire to reproduce himself faded, and the seeds that still sprang from him held no spark. He lost his purpose, except to shade the people that still came and went below him. He noticed more of their admiration and, yes, even their fondness for his graceful arms and colored leaves. He found a simple peace with his people. He was near the end of his long life, for Maples do not live forever. He knew that the years of the man and woman would race ahead to meet death in their time as well.
                A man with a chainsaw came and trimmed his dead arms back to live wood. The Maple savored two more cycles of growth and stasis. These were the years that he would always think of as his favorite time on Pleasure Road. The people gazed on him with love. The woman even spoke to him sometimes, in her strange burbling language. He knew she was sending him peace and well wishes. He also knew she was saying good-bye to his physical being. When the man came back to cut him away from his tall life, he did not struggle. He drew his spirit down into the warmth of his spirit’s Mother, and listened to the deep realms of her womb. Hers was the song of existence and love for every manifestation of her Self.
                And then a miracle transpired, a moment of healing he had not expected. On the night of the next full moon, the woman had come to pray for him. She had asked the Goddess Luna to bless his spirit. She had thanked him for all he had been in this life and wished for his contentment in the life to follow.
                As he gazed today on Pleasure Road, the Maple felt he could be at peace with this place. It had been alien to his kind, but not hostile. Trees of every age and kind awoke and whispered their farewells over the howling wind. Boreus told him he must travel now if he wished to find a place where spring could coax him above the ground anew. He drew himself down into the Earth and raced through the roots and rivers beneath Her surface to the next place he would grow into a young body, joining the cycle of life once more. A deep forest would grant him the room and serenity that fitted his own nature this time. The Maple from Pleasure Road would grace a pleasant place at last.   

BUNDT BUMMER

 

A "big" birthday has just come and gone…but our favorite local pastry bakery, Dingledein’s, had gone out of business. I’m a scratch baker, but not a professional, or even a yuppie with a ton of equipment and endless dollars to spend. Still, I bake bread weekly, and always baked all the family b-day cakes back in the day. I figured “what the hell archie;” I will just do it myself this year, so I dragged a Bundt pan out of the back of the cabinet and dug out the recipe book that had, long ago with it.

I looked up recipes which would fit in the “mini” pan, found an appealing one, shopped ingredients and began the next day. I chopped cherries and prepped chocolate, sifted dry ingredients and creamed the butter, sugar and eggs. Then, I got out the mixer. I was soon ready to pour batter into the pan. To my surprise, it filled it almost to the brim.

I went back to the recipe book and checked again. Yes—this was specifically for the “mini” pan.

Full steam ahead.  I wasn’t listening to the shrill little voice of baker’s experience in my head which was telling me that this cake would, shortly, be all over the bottom of the oven. I didn’t put a cookie sheet underneath it. Why I did this, I can find no reason, except, maybe, sheer stubbornness.  

After all, this recipe book has never let me down before…

Well, as the voice of experience had suggested, Vesuvius erupted. I turned the oven off, got gloves and the cookie sheet I should have put under no matter what “the book said.” Anyone who has reached into a hot oven to pick up a molten tub of something knows how scary this is, but it had to be done. Somehow I got the cake pan onto the sheet without more spilling or burning myself. I turned the oven back on, and, an instant later, the floor of the oven burst into flames. After staring for a moment, and realizing that with so much fuel, it wasn’t about to give up any time soon, I retrieved a box of baking soda. I put out the fire, after turning the oven off once again.

 

 

Okay! I’d got the fire out, and the cake pan situated so that the still lively volcanic action would no longer end up on the oven floor. Mad at myself, but not yet ready to despair, I went back to cleaning the kitchen, washing dishes, putting away the mixer, etc. and then started on the frosting. Half an hour later, I realized I hadn’t turned the oven back on...

Well, this was a duel now, between me and my own folly.  I turned the oven to a lower temperature and began to bake once more. By using a thermometer, I would eventually make a decision about when the cake was done. 

At last, I removed it—best estimate—and after it had cooled a bit, and after a long session of chipping the lava flow from the pan sides and disengaging it from the cookie sheet, I managed to pick the whole thing up and turn the cake onto a plate.  Believe it or not, five minutes later, the darn thing slipped out of the pan, and in proper Bundt form! About an hour later, I frosted it and my husband and I ate--and ate it. It was—somehow—quite tasty, despite all the adventures it and I had been through together.

 

~~Juliet Waldron

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GEORGE WASHINGTON AND ME

 

 

 

American history was important to my mother, who was proud of her membership in The Colonial Dames. Stories of early America were integral to my childhood. Naturally, the ones about George Washington were particularly important. I heard early the old pious tale about  the cherry tree and about the coin his super-powerful arm was supposed to have thrown across the Potomac.

My interest was helped along because I serendipitously happened into life on George Washington’s birthday. For many years I took pleasure from sharing the day with the great man. After all, back in the ‘50’s this was still celebrated on the day on which it fell, which meant that my birthday was a school holiday. Pretty sweet! Even if February in upstate NY meant we were buried in 6 feet of snow. Friends came to house for sledding and for snow-fort-building, but, by the time I was eight or nine, costume parties were my favorite.   To have a costume party in the dead of winter was a little weird—remember, this is the ‘50’s —but everyone got into the spirit, even if it just meant finding last autumn’s Halloween costume again.

To get back to President Washington--I appreciated him even more after I grew up. I learned, as I read history, that he went far beyond homilies, holidays and cherry pies.   

 

 

Father of Our Country. Think about what it means. It’s pretty heavy stuff to lay on anybody who put his pants on one leg at a time. Still, when you take a look at his track record here’s what you find:

“Washington was Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army upon whose victory the thirteen colonies depended to secure their separate and equal station among the powers of the earth. In the summer of 1787, he presided over America's Constitutional Convention. His presence lent decisive significance to the document drafted there, which continues in force in the twenty-first century as the oldest written constitution in the world. From 1789-1796, he held the highest office in the land as the first president of the United States of America under this constitution.”   
* The Claremont Institute

 

Even more important than all that formality above, Washington was “the man who would not be King.” Unlike every other 'People's' Revolution since, our military hero didn’t become a dictator, one imperfectly hidden beneath a variety of sound-bite "savior"' designations, as have so many others--Napoleon, Pol-Pot, Kim Il-sung, Stalin, Oliver Cromwell and Mao Zedong. Once the shouting (and the initial blood bath) are over, it's been time to return again to the same old thing--perhaps with a new group of privileged characters running things--but, nevertheless, back to monkey business as usual, where, as George Orwell says, "...some are more equal than others."

After our American Revolutionary War ended, in contrast to so many others "fearless leaders" of history, George Washington collected his hat, got up on favorite horse ("Blue Skin") and went home, back to his plantation. Granted, he was already rich and privileged. After the war, he was a living icon to boot, but he didn't use that considerable leverage to help himself to more. He didn't found a dynasty or play god. Some years later, when his term as our first president ended, he went home for a second time.

George Washington was, in fact, the “Cincinnatus” his contemporaries hailed. Exactly like that legendary Roman farmer, he left off plowing his fields to assume leadership of his country in a time of war. After the war was over, he quietly went home and took up life again as a private citizen. Like the title of James Flexner’s biography, George Washington truly was The Indispensable Man, a man who--rather astonishingly--didn't use his overwhelming personal popularity, his influence and his great wealth to grab America for himself.

 

 

 

~Juliet Waldron~

 

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Danger, Flight, and a surprising Love--

Discover the American Revolution 

 

 

 

 

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COOTIES

Remember when we were little girls, and boys had cooties?

 

Now, I wasn’t a prissy child. I played with frogs, pollywogs, and worms. I did outdoor tasks, such as raking leaves, shoveling snow, and the  correct flip of the wrist with which to toss dog poop into the acre of weeds which surrounded our house. In summer, I made roads in the gravel of the driveway and built houses in trees, so I was no stranger to grub, grit and summer sweat.

 

Nevertheless, little boys were gross. They smelled funny, like members of some other tribe—which, of course, they were. Their hair was cut short in those days, so their big heads and pink scalp was always in view. Lots of them picked their noses. They sneezed and burped and farted—and then laughed about it. Their ears might be full of wax. (A girl’s ears might be full of wax, too, but she at least had hair to hide it.) Boys were rough and loud, likely to break out in a match of pushing and shoving as easily as just stand there  and wait for the bell which signaled that it was time to leave the playground and march back inside.   

 

Then the inevitable change happened. We all grew up. Suddenly those bare-scalped boys—some still not as tall as we girls—became, for the first time, extremely thought-provoking. Friends started to-- “like” was the euphemism--certain boys. High School Romances began. The participants traded each other like cards, one by one, entering the School of Drama & Heartbreak. Sometimes a girl was popular and sometimes she was not, mostly depending upon how dreamy/eligible was her boyfriend. Boys became men and we became women. The mating game began in earnest, with all those triumphs, tragedies, ecstasies, and Nymph-and-Satyr-Aphrodite-in-her-nightie lusts and longings.

 

I’m sure you get the drift, so I’ll fast forward.

 

 

And it’s easy to do that, now that I’ve reached the Crone age. All the organic bits that made the other sex desirable--so lubricious and exciting--have withered and shriveled or been excised by the good docs. Men and women have never been on the same page as far as our methods of communication go, and now, once again, men have regained their old status as an alien species.

 

Some women, I know, do not share this experience, but I mean, really! I sure as heck don’t look hot anymore, with all these wrinkles and sags and neither do my age mates of the masculine persuasion.  I have one of these fellows at home, who, despite 50 years of marriage, of pleading and/or nagging, is still pretty much in the classification of “bear with furniture.” I see other males, too, in and out of the a.m. gym for the Silver Sneakers © programs, or bored and wandering about the supermarket with their bill hats and their flannel shirts, their “chests that have fallen into their drawers,” as the Grand Olde Oprey joke goes, bellying up to the deli counter.  “Testosterone burns,” have inflicted hair loss, sometimes resulting in an unfortunate style choice which I call “the Atoll,” greasy long hair which encircles a  desert island-like bald spot. But even if they’re the lucky old dude with a great wardrobe and lots of Country and Western curls, men, as a group, have, once again, taken on an alien aura reminiscent of my childhood. 

 

 


Juliet Waldron

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