Tag: Ragtag Daily Prompt

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Pick Your Ride!

I’ve traveled by thumb, car, train, plane, bus, and once by way of a farmers hay wagon.

The hay wagon was a hell of a unique way of seeing the countryside. I had been let off by a ride in the middle of nowhere by a jerk. The farmer was haying. In exchange for some help loading bales, he let me ride into town on the wagon.

My point about methods of travel is that depending on which method you use, you see and arrive at very different places. Trundling along in a hay wain brought me to a barn on the edge of a town. I’d see panoramic views by plane and visit a rather plain terminal. If I’m on the train, I probably wind up near the city center, and by bus, I would often wind up in a seedier part of town.

Frankly, you see different people and places and have different experiences depending on how you travel. There is an aseptic neutrality to airports and train stations. You take a connector shuttle, bus, or cab to your hotel. You don’t actually interact with the locale.

Traveling by thumb or bus, I was more likely to see the city or town at eye level, note how clean it was, and observe the material status of the average resident.

Of course, things were a lot different when I was gadding about as a Pius Itinerant. I wasn’t traveling just for fun. There was a big economic drive to it. I was working, looking for work, or looking for new experiences in new places. Being poor, I did this in neighborhoods where single-room occupancy boarding houses were more prevalent than hotels or motels. After you stayed in town for a few weeks you had a realistic perspective on how a community stacked up.

While I never had a rooming house experience where the neighbors were, say, a traveling bagpipe band, some neighbors were “unique.” The young lady who was an exotic dancer, comes to mind. We shared a common kitchen area and I’d run into her from time to time as we prepared meals. She decided that I was a good choice to model new costumes to being that I was polite, and not “grabby.”

I would not encourage anyone to attempt to emulate my old travel methods. But as I stated, where you wind up in a town or city tells you a lot about it. A big hotel, fancy tourist district, or downtown clubs will give you one impression. That impression, though, is limited. It could be the anthropologist in me who wants to see and experience how people actually live in the town or city. So I’d be happier in a neighborhood.

Doing things the way I did allowed me to meet some of the most amazing people and experience some wild experiences like neighborhood Highland games, all night Céilí dances, and more.

After two months of traveling, I felt more of a sense of “heft” about the communities I had visited than the average person jetting around and staying in hotels.

Daily writing prompt
You’re going on a cross-country trip. Airplane, train, bus, car, or bike?
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Truth?

He could deliver the very verisimilitude of honesty, sincerity and utmost confidence. Well, he was a confidence man. He had dedicated his entire life to making a living from fleecing the gullible marks, or fish, that he said populated the world.

Our not quite friend John, despite being able to sell Lucky Charms cereal to a dedicated health food addict, had an honest streak that kept him from truly succeeding. We first met him while he was running an insurance scam in Baltimore. When the scam went bad, he appeared at our Beacon Hill Folkie crash pad one evening. In exchange for a few days of lodging ( until he had himself set up locally) he offered nightly seminars on scams, buncos, and rackets. He offered insights into how to spot them, avoid them and how to get free of them. He even ran us through a few playacting workshops so we’d see how really enticing these could be.

John said there were five basic rules to being a successful “artiste of the con,” but the first and most important was enrolling the fish in the scam. Get them invested, and The fish becomes a collaborator when the fraud collapses. They’ll be too embarrassed to turn in the artiste if and when the swindle collapses.

The mini-workshops were a wonder to watch. He was the most confidant person we had ever met. Unlike many people who fake confidence John did not appear boastful, loud or over confidant. You wanted to trust him. It was scary how good he was.

We asked him once how he’d managed to stay clear of arrest and prison. He replied that he was extremely disciplined. Laughing, he mentioned that it had literally been beaten into him as a child going to parochial schools.

For more on John see:

John’s Art of the Con
Daily writing prompt
Who is the most confident person you know?
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The Pre-Spring Workout

Yesterday, I seemed to have sprained something in my right wrist. Try as I might, in January and February, I get a bit out of shape, and there are the inevitable sore and tired muscles in March. But the plus side is that activity is a big part of how I deal with gloom. The utter depths of seasonal gloom for me tend to be in the first two months of the year. Sorry, I don’t spring into action with a smile on my face and a song in my heart when a blizzard strikes. My main winter accommodation to the New England climate was snowshoeing, but advancing arthritis has made that pleasure difficult. So the height of the snowy season and I are estranged.

When the frosts start yielding to the sun, I begin to revive. It’s time to make maple syrup. Clean the garden areas. Rake, and start daily walks in my tiny wooded garden area. And look for the earliest of our native wildflowers.

While acknowledging an appreciation for Pi Day and the leprechauns that pop up around Saint Patrick’s Day, I’m out there looking for the bronze and green leaves of the trout lily or the wooly leaves and white flowers of bloodroot (sanguinaria). This year, as of yesterday morning, only a small leaf of a columbine had emerged.

Every day, I’ll be out cleaning, getting garden beds ready, and picking up broken branches from our last ice storm. Then, I’ll take a break and go wildflower hunting. I like it when I’m surprised and find something I haven’t planted. That quarter of our lot is an environmental restoration project, and it’s nice when nature takes an unaided part in the restoration

This is how I break the gloom of winter just before true spring launches. While living in Maine I heard this season described as “stick season”. But people I knew also called it “traitor spring”, because it was so variable and untrustworthy. I try to keep that sentiment in mind because it’s too easy on a day that turns warm to forget that the season still has some punch in it.

With my years living here, I’ve turned into a cranky Yankee. I have a bit of contempt for those who wait until April to get going. But the truth is I need this pre-spring; it’s the therapy that resolves the blues of winter.

Daily writing prompt
What strategies do you use to cope with negative feelings?
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Mushin

My Japanese sensei in judo first introduced me to the concept of mushin when I was about fourteen. Mushin is a state sometimes described as having no mind. In mushin, you seemingly have no conscious thoughts; your actions flow smoothly without thinking about the next move. You are uninfluenced by tension, anxiety, or concerns about outside events.

Beginning at fourteen, I didn’t get it. And I don’t think sensei thought I should at that point. In fact, I believe that I may have thought it was some sort of fictional mystic thing that sensei was joking about. Although Sensei was a Japanese all-star Judo Champion, he was only twenty himself and not beyond fabricating elaborate jokes to play upon his young American students. After all, he and his fellow sensei were our sole source of information on martial arts and Japanese culture.

It wasn’t until I started carving almost ten years later that I first experienced it. I would become aware of my surroundings as my girlfriend repeatedly called me. I had been carving with intent for a solid hour without interruption. She was not pleased, but I was thrilled. I finally understood mushin.

Many years later, at age fifty, I returned to work in martial arts ( Japanese Swordsmanship – Iaido). At about the Shodan level (first-degree black belt), I found that I could also slip into mushin while doing repetitive forms (kata).

Mushin is not a daily feature of my life, but it is something that I look forward to while doing something like carving the sails on a ship portrait or hollowing the wings on an eagle carving.

Daily writing prompt
What activities do you lose yourself in?
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New Approaches to Marketing!

The cats watch Animal Planet on the large screen downstairs. I assume that if you are a cat, there is nothing like watching your large cousins take down large prey in a grudge match. They certainly aren’t rooting for the antelopes and other critters. Watching the flashing tails and, sometimes, small growls, you can see that they are really into it. Then, in quieter moments, they’ll lie on my desk and watch cat videos on YouTube. The live-action on the real feeder in the window doesn’t offer the same sort of instant gratification as watching fat titmice and sparrows devour seeds in front of your very eyes.

So far, no “influencer” on YouTube or TikTok has tapped into this potential market of, shall we say, eager marks. But it’s only a matter of time before the cash potential is realized.

My credit union has secure credit card for kids. You get to monitor their purchase habits, and add cash as needed. With declining birth rates in the USA I can see marketeers pushing limits to make active consumers out of our pet cats. I can envision the talk now. “Sabrina, you over spent your credit allowance by ten dollars for a package of Zesty Freeze Dried Wildebeest Crunchies”, “Meoor. Meow.” “Yes I understand you saw them on Wild Kingdom, and all the cats want them, but you have a budget, Young Lady – Princess or not!”

I can see this descending into the tawdry depth of commercialism as cat parents organize for responsible advertising for pets.

But, you know cats are simply the beginning. Most dogs ignore TV, but that’s only a challenge waiting to be overcome.

Daily writing prompt
What movies or TV series have you watched more than 5 times?
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Whoooooooo!

I have a certain respect for phenomena that I do not understand. I am always happy to accept rational reasoning for why something is happening, but that’s not always available. So, my operative mode is to look for the explainable, rational, and scientific. If you don’t find it, however, respect the fact that you don’t have a clue and extract yourself as fast as possible. So Superstitious, no. Cautious, yes.

I am not a horror movie fanatic, don’t watch much Television, and don’t read in the horror genre at all. So I’m not steeped in the expectation that the Zombie Apocalypse is about to occur, the undead arise, or that ghosts all have ill intentions. Nor have I fallen off the wagon and am experiencing the DTs.

All that having been said, during my time as a Pius Itinerant, I ran into more than one item that defied easy explanation. Now, let me add right away that it was a cardinal rule for me and my friends not to travel with or use whacky tobacco, pills, or other chemical enhancements while traveling. Those led to complications with the law that were worse than being told to remove yourself pronto. So simple straight sobriety was the rule on the road for us.

Given sobriety, and seeking rational explanations I am still left seeking to explain how some shit actually happened. There was the time I stopped to hitch alongside a pretty girl also looking for a ride. When a car stopped she disappeared. It trned out she was a kind of legend in the area.

Then there was the town we couldn’t get out of. We seemed to keep on coming back to the little Town Green with a statue of an elephant on a ball or globe. I’ve searched for it for years in Central Massachusets, Southern New Hampshire, and Vermont without luck.

Years afterward, my wife and I moved into an apartment in Malden, Massachusetts. The basement was empty, and I thought it would be a wonderful place to have a model railroad. But it had a sort of occupant. Every time I went down the stairs, I sensed a young man with a full-hearted scream. There was no sound. But after a while, I could almost see him with his mouth open, screaming at me in rage. My cat Clancy ( The Grey Menace, who was afraid of nothing) flatly refused to join me in the basement after the first few journey’s down the stairs.

I eventually decided that the uncomfortable feeling was enough to dissuade me from building in the basement. I built the trains in a spare room instead. Was I afraid? No, not particularly, but I wasn’t comfortable, and I was interested in doing things that were pleasurable. So I left the haunt to his basement.

Whatever caused the young man, let’s call him Bob, to be ejected from life and inhabit that basement, I’ll never know. But he wasn’t the harbinger of a major household haunting, the End Times, or any such thing. So, I just left things be. On the occasions that I had to go into the basement, I waved hello, did what I needed to, and left.

I can’t explain Bob, or any of the other things I’ve experienced. Not being addidcted to ghost stories, horror or conspiracy theories it doesn’t particularly bother me that there are this category of things that remain inexplicable. My heart doesn’t race, my palms don’t get sweaty, and I don’t rush for the door.

I’ll leave you now with the words of the wise Jimmy Buffett:

Vampires, mummies and the Holy Ghost
These are the things that terrify me the most
No aliens, psychopaths or MTV hosts
Scare me like vampires, mummies and the Holy Ghost

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Hung Up

People get hung up on anthropomorphized zoology. What I mean is we attribute supposed animal characteristics to humans. And by the way, my dog Max and our cats Marcus and Sabrina say that they’re frankly had it with the idiocy.

First, while they love us, they are disgusted by our disturbing habits. Smoking tobacco? Yick. Brandy, wine and beer? Get a good catnip toot going already. Then there our truly disgusting toilet habits.

Although cats and dogs disagree on many basic issues they agree that humans are nuts. From the sort of pop music they “dance” around with to the awful foods they eat. Who wants to be catorgorized ( so to speak) with humans?

They save their greatest disdain for our habit of comparing humans to cats or dogs. They say someone is “Leonine,” graceful as a cat, faithful as a dog. The Anti-Defamation League should be put on notice that cats and dogs find such comparisons demeaning. It equates superior beings, like cats and dogs, with humans. Humans have disgusting habits like immersing themselves in water and washing with soap. Get a tongue!

Sabrina’s cousin Suzette lives with a human who “sings” in the shower. Her human mate complains that she sounds like a cat in heat. Please! How can you compare human screeching with the operatic majesty of a cat’s vocalization!

Enough! Animals need to protect their good reputations from being sullied by comparisons to mere humans. Get a life already. Compare yourself to Trump, Pelosi, or those basketball players you like so much. Leave us alone.

Daily writing prompt
Which animal would you compare yourself to and why?
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Cyborg

Well, hips, knees, replacement parts in every nook, cranny, and crevice. By now, I expect that cyborg is the proper term of address. But, Hot damn! That Lithitronic Rechargeable Unit ™ and those Technocentron™ memory units are just incredible. You have all the licks for all the old folksongs on a guitar, banjo, and keyboard! And the new vocoder voice has a nice mellow baritone.

But, you say it’s not the same. No challenge getting the correct rasp out on a blues? Everything sounds the same. And everyone has the same perfect hair?

The worst of it is the mortgage. You have another century to work to pay off the plastic surgery and the joint replacement?

But from your perspective years on, what advice can you give me?

Enjoy what I’ve got, while I’ve got it?

Daily writing prompt
Write a letter to your 100-year-old self.
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Spree!!

I went to the greenhouse shop this week to clean and set up for the next ship portraits I’ll be carving. I cut the wood blanks in the fall, and the preliminary artwork was done in December. Usually, I clean and then begin work in February, but this has not been a typical year. Too cold and too icy.

While cleaning, I sort through tools I don’t expect to use. It’s mostly items for making chests and large boxes that fall into that category. For the time being, I’ll move them into the basement shop I rarely use. I need the room in the greenhouse for planned projects. Tool needs fluctuate with demand. While I do not think I’ll make another searchest or small chest, I’ve learned never is not a safe word.

While never is not a safe word, I feel safe in saying no more tool buying sprees are in the offing. Last year I made two very select purchases of used carving tools. Those rounded out the selection needed for my portrait carving. These were mostly small tools of odd profiles that are not manufactured anymore. I am probably their third owner.

But I still peruse my favorite catalog and website: Lee Valley Tools. For a woodworker, it qualifies as a sort of tool porn. “!!!Looka this one – Jeezz! I just hafta get that!”

These days, I try to be more restrained. When I go to their site, I hide the charge card. I force myself to have cooling-off time after I get excited and before I hit add to my cart. Then I hum a few bars of Amazing Grace or some such tune to distract myself. I go and have a cup of tea.

Who am I fooling? I need that new detail sander! The small tool sharpener! The tiny plane for groundwork and their work support kit is on sale. I’ll find some way to fit it into the budget.

Tool lust is a terrible thing to have.

Daily writing prompt
Where would you go on a shopping spree?
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Who?

Middle names are not just placeholders. They can be crippling additions to the burdens we carry in life. Just look at poor Patrice Ursula Pew. Nicknamed pew pew as a joke in childhood, the unfortunate moniker followed her into adulthood beset with scent-related jokes. I had a childhood friend whose name was Thomas Issac Cougan. Once the neighborhood wags got ahold of it he was forever known as Tick or the Tick. But better Tick than Ick, which happened to Isabella Clarise Kelley.

To add a wee bit of clarity here. My friends were no worse or better than the average middle school bunch of young felons whose core values included making anyone the least bit different miserable.

Now, my middle name is Nicholas. Thankfully, LNC does not provide a home-opener opportunity for a nasty nickname. I urge all parents to please consider the effect the middle name you choose will have on your child.