Somewhere

Thought For The Day

Somewhere between gone and forever

There's a time that our mind cannot measure

When the wind whistles brood

A recalcitrant mood

And our shoelaces get all tied together.

I know I'm not leader or docent

And much of my life has been woe spent

But truth should be known

That there's moments I've flown

Not all of my dreams have been latent.

If the sun does not show in the east now

Not every jump is a Salchow

Some days what is best

Doesn't come til the west

Frames the star in the sky with an eye brow.

Herb Ratliff, February 29, 2012, All Rights Reserved

Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes*

Thought For The Day

Albert de Belleroche:
Rear view, head and shoulders,
of young woman, ca. 1885

Rose my color is and white,

Pretty mouth and green my eyes.

Moments without pleasure or delight,

Skin that offers, then denies.

Alabaster smile on crimson lips,

Rainbow diamonds dangle, perfect lobes.

Invitation offered, undulating hips

Caveats, wondering, insincere probes.

Longing is my mood and blue.

Aloft, then crashing without you.

©Herb Ratliff, February 24, 2012, All Rights Reserved

*Note: The first two lines in this poem ( Rose my color is and white,
Pretty mouth and green my eyes.) are lifted directly from J D Salinger's short story, Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes. The rest of it is just me playing with the initial thought.

What's a Turbo Anyway?

Thought For The Day

I accepted a job offer late summer 1979 to work in the computer field. The job would involve a lot of travel. I would be expected to travel to California and other points west on a pretty regular basis. It was an exciting proposition, full of promise and I was looking forward to the opportunity. There was much to do to get up to speed on the computer side of the job since up to that point I had been in the insurance business. I spent the next few weeks in training and learning a new language that used words like hardware, software, integrated, baud rates, disk drives, processors and so on. The weeks drifted into months and as the year drew to a close it was decided that I was ready to be turned loose and after the Christmas holiday I would be taking my first solo trip to California. But first Christmas with the family and holiday galas with our friends.

January 31, 1979 I went to a New Years Eve party at a friend's house. Among the other guest at the party was an air traffic controller. He was new to me but quite an interesting chap and we ended up sitting next to each other at dinner. As we got to know each other more and more information flowed and I offered that I would be hitting the airways soon. He offered encouragement and only a bit of advice but he was firm in his admonitions. He said, "Avoid O'hare and never fly on commuters." Sound advice I thought without any experience or knowledge of such things and so a few days later provided with tickets from the travel department of Citicorp I boarded a commuter to Chicago at 7:05 AM.

I had flown in small planes a fair amount and had quite enjoyed it. The prospect of being on a commuter en route to O'hare was lost in the excitement of the journey ahead. It was about a twenty passenger plane with twin engines and I noted that they were turbo props. I didn't know what that meant but it struck me that it was high tech engine stuff and were probably jet powered or something. 

About halfway into the trip, somewhere over Lake Michigan on a very cold and icy morning in January one of those turbo props stopped turning and it was conveniently just outside my window. I watched it stop and then began to wonder what turbo prop meant. Was the turbo now actuating the engine? What was a turbo anyway? Could this possibly be a problem? I am not a good swimmer and I wondered how long I could last in the icy waters below. Then, the announcement suggesting seat belts and a calm disposition. I was transfixed with terror but not making loud noises and gesticulating wildly. The plane was teetering a bit but not falling and that seemed enough to be thankful for at the moment and so I tried not to focus on the motionless turbo prop outside my window.

The captain said we had a straight in to O'hare and so we glided in on foam, not a real confidence booster but while messy it seemed good they were thinking safety. I had never shaken quite like that before that landing but thoughts of never flying again and renting a car to go back to Flint entered my mind. But I weathered the incident and prepared for the next leg which was a direct to San Francisco. And if you think the loss of an engine was bad, you have no idea what turbulence is and I can't tell you now but sometime I will if you are interested. That Delta flight I was about to take was the most amazing flight I ever took.

©Herb Ratliff, February 23, 2012, All Rights Reserved

Eight Year Old Boy..............Conclusion

Thought For The Day

We were now seven blocks from home. This was a significant distance, one block farther than our school. We were beginning to feel the reigns loose. We were on our way to a new life. Four more blocks and we came to Gaudreau Florist. We considered only briefly sending flowers to our parents but somehow that seemed to minimize our disappointment in how we were treated by them and so we decided against it. Also, we didn't have enough money for flowers or anything else once we examined our resources. We had crossed Woodbridge, a significant traffic artery, we now were feeling somewhat disconnected from our homes and the initial rush of independence flushed us with excitement. Only a little over 19 miles to go.

The evening was softly approaching and like two puppies we instinctively were looking for a food source. Even we knew that our plan was foundering. But, we were in the midst of an adventure and adventurers can forgo creature comforts if they must. The conversation had slowed to occasional observations of things we had no interest in. The spring in our step was losing it's bounce and both of us were trying to come up with some kind of catalyst. There were no more stores on our route for the next few blocks and so we saw nothing but neighborhood kids and families holding Summer Court in their yards. The barbecues were burning hot dogs and hamburgers and an occasional chicken sent exotic aromas directly to our stomachs. We could have been walking through the kitchen of the Four Seasons.

We were now within a block of the Daniel Theater. That was a pretty far piece for us and what was worse was the smell coming from the popcorn and Tony's was within sight. That did it. We looked at each with sincere apology but an incontrovertible resolve that the runaway was over. We had been sabotaged by our stomachs.

We turned around and headed back to our separate homes and the humiliation of failing at out task. But, what could be worse than not eating? It was OK.

I do not remember much about what happened, but in a few days the whole thing was forgotten by everyone involved. Kick The Can, Hide and Seek, Statue, Twenty Questions and the evening games continued until Labor Day and then, it was back to school and all the pals we had missed during the summer. I would be moving soon to another house and a new neighborhood.. But, the kids would be the same and we would all end up at North School when we entered the seventh grade and started changing classes every hour. It was not the end of anything, it was a continuation of one of the greatest times of my life. The simple, plain, clear view of childhood. What a remarkable gift to be naive, single-minded and fresh. Maybe the greatest gift was to be teachable. There was actually enough trust in the world to allow us the luxury of believing that we could be anything we wanted to be. No kidding, anything.

Herb Ratliff, February 28, 2012, All Rights Reserved

Eight Year Old Boy... Running Away

Thought For The Day

The time dragged on as we waited for our escape to freedom. We checked our food supply over and over, several times considering a snack of a carrot or perhaps a small cookie but we  decided to wait until later around dinner time. The plan had developed slowly. We left a number of sizable holes in our plan but agreed we would work those out as we went along our way. We did not have a lot of travel experience on our own. We did not even have bicycles but we decided that we would go to Midland, a town about twenty odd miles north of Saginaw that we both knew could be reached by following State Street, a major artery that ran North - South. An additional advantage to that plan was it's location, access was only one block away. And so about four thirty that afternoon we began our adventure. We walked directly to State Street and headed North.

It was late afternoon, about high tea time, and we were understandably hungry, neither of us were ready to tap the food stores yet but eight year old boys are only interested in two things, food and adventure. So far the adventure had been pretty mediocre so naturally the food part kept rearing it's head.

One of the first streets we had to cross was Hanchett and that was where John lived. We used our skills learned as young scouts trained in the ways of Straight Arrow, a radio Indian Scout. We looked carefully around the neighborhood making certain that no people we knew saw us, then ran a block to get out of sight. The next two blocks took us past Stone School, closed for the summer but we were aware that there could be classmates in the area. We did not want to come into contact with people who would ask questions and so we moved quickly on our way. But, at the end of the next block was a major obstacle, Spatz Bakery. Spatz made the best bread in Saginaw outside the family kitchen. So, even though there was no baking going on that time of day, there was an aroma of baking from an earlier time of the day that lingered, reached out and surrounded us with fresh, out of the oven flavors which sought to divert us from our objective. The Handy Andy Tool Kit which served as our pantry was beginning to look pitifully small. But on we continued.

We were now seven blocks from home. This was a significant distance, one block farther than our school. We were beginning to feel the reigns loose. We were on our way to a new life. Four more blocks and we came to Gaudreau Florist. We considered only briefly sending flowers to our parents but somehow that seemed to minimize our disappointment in how we were treated by them and so we decided against it. Also, we didn't have enough money for flowers or anything else once we examined our resources. We had crossed Woodbridge, a significant traffic artery, we now were feeling somewhat disconnected from our homes and the initial rush of independence flushed us with excitement. Only a little over 19 miles to go.

To be continued..........

©Herb Ratliff, February 22, 2011, All Rights Reserved

Eight Year Old Boy....continued The 2nd Thing

Thought For The Day

John Fielder and I -circa 1950

When we moved from our house on 17th St. to the house on Fayette I left my best friend, Johnny Barchek, behind. We played endless hours by the railroad track and in the field between our houses where there was a pond that housed plenty of critters suitable for the curiosity of two small boys. We also spent late afternoons lying on the floor listening to the exploits of Straight Arrow, Sky King, Sgt Preston of the Mounties and others on the radio. But Johnny became a casualty of the moving wars and after we moved I never saw or heard from him again.

But leaving old friends opens the door for new friends and when we moved to Fayette Street I met someone who would become a lifetime friend, John Fielder. I don't remember how I met John but I walked past his house on the way to school and I must assume he was in the same class with me. Somehow we became pals and found time to spend together doing a variety of things. One of the great activities was a weekend trip to his dad's cottage on Peach Lake. As I write this I have no idea where Peach Lake is but I will locate it on the map. It was the first trip I ever took away from home for an overnight stay. One of the more humorous events from that trip was the Saturday morning breakfast. John's Dad, Clyde offered me my breakfast and my response was I don't like or want or something along those lines to which he replied, OK, it's a long time til lunch. You might wanna try it. I did of course after only a small amount of consideration. It was a bit of early parent training for me. I used the same technique often as a parent myself. It's hard to tell these stories without a lot of sidebars, I'll try to control myself.

John and I spent a lot of time together doing kid things and one day we were talking about our parents and how badly they treated us. There is no accusation in that remark, I'm just setting the stage. We both felt that we were Dicken's kids, the Oliver Twist's of the neighborhood. After many discussion about this untenable situation it became obvious that there was only one solution to the problem. We had to run away from home. That put into motion the breakout plan of the century.

It was summer, you can't run away from home in the Winter. That's much too complicated. First we had to consider a suitable food supply to take with us. John had a Handy Andy red tool box that would perfectly disguise the food. One of us took a can of tuna fish out of the family larder along with some carrots and cookies. You never know when you might need to catch a horse for transportation or a rabbit to eat. We were preparing for the worst possible conditions, lack of food. We decided on the day and gathered an extra shirt or two. We set up a logical diversion by saying to his mom that we were going to my house and to my mother that were were going to his. With the time and place set, the food stores in place and the extra clothing stowed we awaited the right moment for the plan to be implemented. Our target date was Wednesday.

Wednesday arrived and we met for strategy session. Late afternoon was selected as the time. And so we waited.

To be continued.....

©Herb Ratliff, February 17, 2011, All Rights Reserved

Eight Year Old ....continued

Thought For The Day

Next on the agenda would be the walk from Kroger’s past Clark’s Drug’s, across the street was a service station, full service, and a little south of that Russell Electric and some other small business’ I cannot remember. To the east and across Michigan Avenue was Schmeck’s Drugs. Later in my young work career I would work there for a short time. To the south and on the east side of Michigan was the North Side Café, affectionately called, Charlie’s Café by the regulars. Next to that was my dad’s shoe repair shop. I would check the door to make certain it was locked. I think even then I knew what I was doing was not something that would have been allowed if I had asked permission and so attempted to justify my activities by responsible behavior of a sort. Then I would go back to Michigan Ave and head east toward the River and  downtown.

There was not anything terribly noteworthy, to me at least, between Michigan Ave and the Bridge with the possible exception of a bakery, a commercial bakery called Case’s I think. The smells coming from those sacred cloisters made me very, very hungry. I never was able to figure a way to get hot bread, a troubling failure in my early growth. It was about the equivalent of six blocks to the bridge and over into the downtown.
A bridge at night is a wonderful, mystical thing. There are sounds and shadows that excite and frighten anyone. If you are eight, there are evil, venomous creatures lurking in the depths waiting for you to lose your way, stop paying attention and become an easy target for capture. Sound on water travels far and loud with a strange clarity  that pronounces mystery and intrigue with perfect diction. So there I would stand, gazing into the shadows, listening for any recognizable sounds and watching furtively for any quick motions in my peripheral vision. It was then that I became Bobby Benson, or Clipper, Sky King’s nephew ready for action, quick wits and action. When I remained unchallenged by bad guys and monsters I moved on but knew that on the return trip they could be waiting. I would be ready for them with Rusty at the ready we could handle any situation.
Down into the town where there were buildings to be seen. I would look in the windows and fantasize being able to wear the amazing clothes on the plaster mannequins. I’d walk by the Bancroft Hotel and down past the Temple theater and by that time would begin to feel a bit tired and ready to turn back toward home. I don’t know how many times I made these trips but it was a very frequent activity. What still surprises me is that I was never even seen by a policeman or if I was he was unimpressed with my adventure and said nothing to me. If the bridge seemed ominous to me on the way back I would walk to it and then run as fast as I could manage until I was on the other side. I knew with my superior speed and dog like Rusty that no one would dare confront me.
Back at home I would slide under the covers and wish that Rusty could have stayed in my room with me but that was not to be and so off to sleep until the next sleepless night and a new adventure.
The other thing that happened during that time frame will take a little too long to cover today so I'll tell you about it tomorrow.

To be continued.............

©Herb Ratliff, February 16, 2012, All Rights Reserved

An Eight Year Old Boy Tells All

Thought For The Day

In 1949 - 1950 my family lived in a house near the corner of Genesee and North Fayette in Saginaw,Michigan. I was in the third grade and attended Stone School, my teacher was Mrs. House. Among other things we learned to square dance in her class. A couple a significant things happened during that time frame and their value lies primarily in how graphically they illustrate the difference in lifestyle we grew up in compared to the way our children and grandchildren grow up today. 

The corner we lived near bordered on a commercial area. Brenske Plumbing was across the street, next to us was a Sunoco Gas Station. On the opposite side of Genesee there was a Kroger Store and there was a movie theater, The Roxie, just down the block. We were about a mile or so from the main downtown area which lay across the bridge of the Saginaw River. The downtown area housed the Bancroft Hotel, Morley Brothers, Heavenrich's and other holy grail establishments of commerce.

At the ripe old age of eight I walked to school every day. That was not at all unusual. It was only a five blocks and many of the other children from the neighborhood walked to school as well. There were no buses, it was a neighborhood school. And, besides, we had patrol boys. They guarded the street crossings and told us when it was safe to cross. Every boy in the school wanted to be a patrol boy. That was a very big deal. If you were selected for that grand duty you were given a white band that was constructed of a heavy cotton material that was connected by adjustable fasteners. One part went around your waste and the other crossed diagonally across your chest. That symbolized your authority to hold or advance other students across the street, one of the early badges of peer authority. It was a much sought after prize.

I mentioned there were a couple of items that stood out for me during that time. The first that I will mention had to do with the difficulty I had sleeping. It was not because of any particular problem, noise or condition. I really don't remember why I couldn't sleep, just that I woke up at night and was unable to go back to sleep. If you are eight and can't sleep remaining in bed is an unnatural act. So I got up and wandered the house. My father worked very hard. He had a shoe repair shop and he worked for General Motors. When he finished at midnight at "The Gun Plant", a name given to Steering Gear Plant Number two because guns had been made there during World War Two, the war the entire nation participated in proudly, he was very tired and needed to sleep. He had no trouble sleeping. But waking him was not anything any of us wanted to do. If we woke him, that meant mother would awaken and having two unhappy parents in the middle of the night was simply not a desirable situation.
So, I quietly wandered the house until that was simply too uninteresting and eventually I would find my way to the door and ease out quietly into the night. I had a dog named Rusty. He knew the routine including the need for quiet movement. Together we would go into the world of the night people, those who made our daytime activity possible. The first stop would be across the street to the Kroger Store. The trucks would be unloading the groceries that lined the shelves and the meat and produce that made our dinners. They enjoyed the diversion we provided and would cut off small bits of meat for Rusty for which he was most appreciative.

To be continued........

©Herb Ratliff, February 15, 2011, All Rights Reserved

H

There Just Isn't Anything Better

Thought For The Day

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

William Shakespeare  

(1564 - 1616)

Monday Morning

Thought For The Day

Wrapped in blankets, sheets and pillows In the morning's light 

when the warmth saved from your tumbles in the dream dance of the night

Turns your focus button slowly to the clock's face on the stand

Where the "must do" list is waiting for the movement of your hand

But, it's Monday shouts your worn out, tired, narcissistic self,

I don't want to, it's not fair, just another hour please, knock the clock right off the shelf

Then the world begins to quiver with the thought of getting up, but you know

That there's no hiding from job, the rent and the stuff that makes you go

So you climb out of your sleep nest and put feet upon the floor

And you walk into the kitchen, thinking, but there's something, something more

And to your great surprise, happy, joyous, whoops, I just forgot

That the work that I must go to is no more, I worketh not.

I'm inspired

cause

I'm retired.

©Herb Ratliff, February 13, 2012, All Rights Reserved

Nymphs, Midges and Streamers

Thought For The Day

You can: 

let go, 

drop,  or toss, 

throw out, cut off, or  abandon,

back out, bail out or bow out,

flake out, fly the coop, or give up the ship

quit, run out on or storm out,

take a powder, take a walk or wash your hands of,

leave behind, relinquish or withdraw

 but the truth is it's probably

a lot better to

just 

release gently.

©Herb Ratliff, February 10, 2011, All Rights Reserved

Guns and Grandpas

Thought For The Day

John and Ada Johnson

OK, that's not when he taught me.

When I was a child there were a couple of things that happened that deeply affected my personal view of the role responsibilities of one charged with being a father or a grandfather. One of those factors was time which we all know is the director of a good bit of our living conditions. My father had a shoe repair shop, Economy Shoe Rebuilders and he worked full time at Saginaw Steering Gear, a General Motors Manufacturing Facility. That did not leave a lot of time for what we would call "quality time" to spend with me. I spent some time with him in the shoe shop where he did teach me how to repair shoes and the fine art of cleaning up the shop after all of the polishers and grinders had sent fine leather dust like a sheer muslin sheet over the entire building. But, little time was spent in conversation, imagination or philosophizing. Frankly, I can't imagine how he held up doing what he did every day and quite often it included Saturday. 

We did not have what one would think of now as a vacation. We did not go to restaurants for dinner. We did not have "Father and Son" outings. Whenever something like that came up I usually tagged along with a friend's father if it could be worked out. I was not angry about my dad not being able to go with me, I didn't see how he could do it either. But let me go back to the "vacation" part.

These were nothing if not remarkable examples of a different world and a different life style. They typically began with being awaken sometime between 1:00AM and 5:00AM. The packing would have been completed and food stores laid in the car along with blankets, pillows and traveling stuff. The transportation was not equipped with electronic devices with my entertainment in mind. The only entertainment was the radio if it worked and whatever I had brought along in the way of reading material. The radio was for dad, period. The food was soda crackers, ring Bologna and water. It would be meted out in excruciatingly small quantities at exasperatingly long intervals.

It was approximately eight hundred miles between Saginaw, Michigan and Pocahontas, Arkansas. There was a gas station built of field stone with a sign with a lion's head that marked the end of our journey and that lion entered my brain when I got in the car and I willed it to hurry to me for the whole eight hundred miles. For in that gas station awaited a coconut bar colored brown, white and pink that was all for me. Ah, the indulgence of  personal satisfaction. Not far from that gas station was the home of my grandparents.

Now both sets of grandparents lived there not too far apart. My grandpa Johnson was to be the man who taught me about splitting wood and gun safety. What stands out to me as the metric for measuring the effectiveness of his teaching is the way it has locked into me and stayed for these many years. That and the look of horror on my mothers face when he walked through the living room carrying me and a .22 caliber rifle. He told me about guns, what they were for, how they should be handled, never to point it at another person, and never to carry it loaded. It was a single shot rifle. I could not have been more than five or six when that happened. He died not long after that but he left me with that wonderful memory and a respect for guns that has served me well.

©Herb Ratliff, February 9, 2012, All Rights Reserved

Dad's Last Run

Thought For The Day

Sometimes I try to imagine the morning it happened. It's not the sort of thing one likes to fix upon, but still, as you are growing up there are unreasonable fears that emerge from time to time that lock into your head and refuse to let go. I really don't know precisely what happened but I can give you a recreation based on what I have been told.

It was a bright Spring day, the sun was shining, birds singing like the beginning of a Disney movie. My grandfather was taking the horses which were hitched to a wagon down to the creek for water. Grandpa Ratliff was a blacksmith, a burly, barrel chested man with arms the size of large fence posts. He once asked me to pump the bellows for him when I was very small. I could not reach the handle and so he lifted me to it and I hung there while he moved it up and down.  Dad was nine years old.

Now here I have to stop and imagine, what is was like to be a nine year old boy in Pocahontas, Arkansas in 1920. The truth is, I couldn't begin to imagine something like that but I'll try. It must have been a weekend or the summer or he would have been in school. I do have a little knowledge about nine year old boys. I was one once, raised one who was and have five grandsons who have reached that age. I have also observed a number of them as cohorts of the others. So, what do I know? They are impetuous, fearless, excitable, happy, delightful, changeable and filled with expectation. They are optimistic beyond description. Oh, and deaf to directions from others, especially older others. 

So, I can see dad vaulting off the front porch and running full speed to catch the wagon and yelling at the top of his lungs for grandpa to wait for him. It was just about then when his left foot, stretched out to full speed extension, fell upon the old, rusted nail that impaled his foot right at the Dorsal Metatarsal and opening his young foot to a severe case of Septicemia (Blood Poisoning) which would forever change his life and possibilities. 

The blood poisoning was so severe that his leg had to be amputated to midway through his femur and left him with what he affectionately called his "stump". Today that would never have happened in Pocahontas, Arkansas or almost anywhere in America. And the other thing that might not have happened was his love of music and the way he played the guitar, fiddle, harmonica and other stringed instruments without the slightest notion how to read music. And he might not have met my mother which would have had a serious impact on me and my beautiful sisters. But that's another story.

©Herb Ratliff, February 8, 2012, All Rights Reserved

Comfort Food

Thought For The Day

Yesterday afternoon as I was returning from my daily walk with Charley, my neighbor, Tina, hailed me. 

"Would you like some blueberry pie." She asked.

Now I ask you, who in their right mind would say no to a question like that? So, trying to sound casual, I accepted her kind offer of blueberry pie. (My mouth is watering just thinking about it.) I thanked her for her generosity and started home when she said:

"Do you like Cabbage Rolls?"

"I couldn't say", I replied, "I've never had them."

She looked astonished and queried, "Would you like to try some? Mike's mother fixed us dinner without telling me and I had already made the cabbage rolls." 

I'm a bachelor, living with my faithful canine companion, Charley. Charley and I have never entertained a negative response to questions involving free food prepared by experienced cooks. So, what could I do but reply in the affirmative. I wouldn't want to hurt my lovely neighbor's feeling, would I? Besides, I could smell the food and it was dinner time and I was hungry. (Darn, I'm drooling again.)

"Certainly, I'd love to try them." I said.

There are few thing that send the flag up for gratitude like a home made dinner. It's one of those things that never loses it's delight. And to get that meal from a neighbor is like icing on the cake, isn't it? Having a neighbor share their bounty with you is a bit like an unscheduled Thanksgiving.  Because, in fact, that's just what it is, a chance to be thankful for random acts of kindness, sharing, hot food and my good fortune for being in the right place at the right time. So really, if it hadn't been for Charley none of that would have happened.

 Thanks,Tina and thanks, Charley . The Cabbage Rolls and Blueberry Pie were great.

©Herb Ratliff, February 7, 2012, All Rights Reserved

The Best You Can Do

Thought For The Day

Bill was a businessman,  whose best friend, John was a builder. They were having lunch one day when Bill reached down and pulled an over sized, manila envelope out of his briefcase and handed it to John. He told John to look at it and call him when he had time to talk about it.

A few days later John called and said he had looked at the plans and was ready to discuss it. John said it was the best and most complete set of plans he had ever seen. Every detail is shown and the materials list is exact.

Bill said, "Will you build it?"

"It would be a pleasure to build this.", John said.

So the agreement was made and in a few weeks excavation began on the project and the materials were ordered. The materials would be coming from all over the world and so the first order of business was to build a warehouse to store everything that was going to be used in the building. It would be a private home on a beautiful site.

Bill told John the building was a very special project. He told him to use only the very best materials and craftsmen on the job. He had explained that while he had no intention of being wasteful, he did not want to quibble over details and that he wanted only the very best in workmanship and material to be used. He even asked John to promise that he would not cut corners on the project. "Only the best." He advised his friend.

It was a large house with many rooms and there were carpenters who built cabinetry, plasterers, tile workers and men trained in marble work tending to the project. It was a time consuming effort and after many months John began to lose interest in the job and it's overwhelming requirement on his time. He began to push his workers to hurry when possible and it would not affect what would be visible to the naked eye to just get it done. He had also had some losses from a building that had cost him a lot of money and needed to recover costs and saw an opportunity to plump up his profit on this project.

Finally, the project neared completion and John called Bill for a "walk through". As they walked through the building Bill began talking about their friendship and how much it had meant to him. He thanked John for his honesty and dependability, for his willingness to help others and his sense of pride in his work. He told him that he was delighted with what he saw and was looking forward to the day when the work ended and the house could be occupied. John was thinking that he would be glad to get this albatross off his back and get on with his normal work.

John saw the end of the project nearing and began to push the workers to completion. He cared little for the detail of fine work and just wanted out. And so the day came when he was ready to turn the house over to his friend, satisfied that what he had done was sufficient and what couldn't be seen was of no consequence anyway. What he didn't know wouldn't hurt him, so to speak.

Bill was ecstatic with his final inspection. He was fairly beaming when he finished.

"This is a special moment, John, your work is the reason I asked you to take on this job. That, and your friendship. You see John, this house is for you. It is an expression of my appreciation for the kind of friend you have been and the quality of your friendship. Enjoy the fruits of your labor."

Herb Ratliff, February 6, 2012, All Rights Reserved

This is my version of a story I heard from my mother when I was growing up, this and "The Little Red Hen". I do not know it's origin but I hope I never forget it.

She loved jonquils

Thought For The Day

She loved jonquils and red bud,

from her childhood in the south I suppose.

I loved telling her they were here and 

inviting her to come and see them.

She didn't like to travel anymore,

things unfamiliar confused her.

But her smile lit the room in Spring,

It was her time: the promise it held,

the coming color, pageantry, and sounds.

So when the brave and impatient jonquils

rush to show off their joy in February

I think of her, the jonquils and her smile.

Wouldn't you?

©Herb Ratliff, February 3, 2011, All Rights Reserved

Sunflower

Thought For The Day

Brown centered, yellow petals

stark

against an ice blue morning

circle

eagle-like 

climbing, soaring, singing in

soliloquy,

the sun

on

a 

green

stem.

©Herb Ratliff, February 2, 2011, All Rights Reserved

Where the &*#@$%% are you going?

Thought For The Day

It seems a small thing but it is one of the more useful small things upon which most of us have agreed for  many years that has in the last few years seemed to have gone away. It is the convention of bearing to the right when walking in buildings, on sidewalks, paths, jogging, walking the dog and other like activities. It no longer seems to be an applied convention and it is, at times, really annoying and sometimes downright painful. The painful part is when the idea of sharing the designated space is not expressed in an amenable way, but rather approached as Wide World of Wrestling participant might approach an opponent. An expression only useful if you are angry and larger than the opposing perambulator.

I have never been given to convention for convention's sake but I must say that certain agreements of the human race are useful. This is one is of particular value because of its tendency to keep the flow of people speedy and without injury. To see it all but ignored is a bit frightening. I have been battered and banged by belligerent bipeds in churches, businesses, parks and hospitals without so much as a "pardon me". 

Are we really in that big a hurry? Is getting to a place that important? Is the intransigence of holding your space in the wrong lane important enough to injure old folks and children? But the real question is what do you give up by contributing to a predictable flow of people. Is it an affront to your individuality, an invasion of your right of expression or an admission of inferiority?  What gives?

If you can bear to the right in your automobile in the interest of avoiding expensive repairs to your body and your car's body why not do it when you are walking too? Please.

©Herb Ratliff, February 1, 2012, All Rights Reserved