Saturday, May 28, 2011

Wooden Heart


                                                WOODEN HEART

I like to surf the internet, and the other day I came upon a clip of Elvis Presley, singing an old German song, called “Muss I Denn.” I ‘m not sure what the English translation is, but it was the first line of the song “Wooden Heart” sung by Joe Dowell and Elvis Presley back in the early sixties. It started out, “Can’t you see—I love you. Please don’t break my heart in two. That’s not hard to do, ‘cause I don’t have a wooden heart.” Listening to it brought tears to my eyes because it was our song, way back then, and she was my new-found, little leibchen.

I think, for many of us, there was a song from our courtship days that defined us. A song that, even today, brings back a floodgate of memories—a song that will always be “our song.” I clicked on the lyrics, and turned to watch her face—seated across the room from me—as the music started. She was seemingly asleep, but then a faint smile came to her face—she opened her eyes and turned and asked me. “Where did you find that?” I wanted to go and take her hand, pick her up, and dance to it once more with her, while singing softly in her ear like I did so many times before. But we both remained seated, smiling through our tears. Our dancing days are over, but our unwooden hearts are still intact.

The words in the song, by themselves, are meaningless unless you put special meaning to them, and we had done that so long ago. But for me, today, it asked the question, “Why a song?” What makes music seem like love in search of a word? Why, on the breath of music, are we able to say what we can’t find the words to say otherwise? Gustav Mahler said, “If a composer could say what he had to say in words, he wouldn’t bother trying to say it in music.” Yes, sometimes to me, music is what feelings sound like. I read another quote once that said, “Painters paint their pictures on canvas but musicians paint their pictures on silence.”

Our music has changed so much over the years that, sometimes, I scarce can define it as music. So many singers of my era could melt your heart with their singing, but to many times today, whatever they are yelling into the microphone is drowned out by the din of musical instruments being abused in the background.  What was meant to be music is, simply, unrecognizable noise. The radio is always on in my vehicle and there have been times, in my travels, when the signal has faded. When that happens, I scan the airwaves for something to my taste, and then often give up in frustration. Thank God for CD’s.

 I’m getting off the track here—no pun intended—but back to her and me, and “Wooden Heart.” For the first time in our lives, the words seemed truer and more relevant, and I fear that my heart will really find out what it is made of. “Can’t you see I love you. Please don’t break my heart in-------- ."


Monday, May 23, 2011

MOTHER'S DAY 2011


                                                
 Each year on Mother’s Day something stirs within my writers soul and says you must write about her. It’s a little bit ironic but men usually have three meaningful relationships in their lives with women and they are comprised of their sweethearts-- then their wives-- and always their mothers. The first relationship is for all practical purposes a fleeting introductory with the opposite sex. A feeling out, on the job, education of women, and guys don’t take that feeling out phrase to literally or you’ll get slapped. The second relationship that develops is the one woman he loves the best in life and usually comes about because one of those sweethearts made her mark. Subsequently, he frequently does his small part in making the world, another mother. But then last, but not least, there is always his real mother who he loves for as long as they both shall live. This is the one woman who is still looking for improvement in him, even as he is having his midlife crises. No matter how old she gets, he will always be her son and she will always be his Mom.

Wives and mothers aren’t always a good mix. The good book tells men to leave their mothers and cling to their wives. When reminded of this by wives most men will wring their hands and in that whiny little voice, that is a cry for some kind of pity, say. “What can I do honey, she is my Mom?” It’s at this point that you want to be able to fast-forward the whole conversation twenty years in the future to when her precious little boy is in the same boat as her husband and she is the MOM. I learned over the years that there are something’s you never tell your wives about your mom. Cooking is one thing. Your wives cuisine frequently mimics her moms. If you want some of that good old Norwegian cooking from your German wife—well you best go visit your mom. To criticize your wives cooking is taking not only a shot at her but her mother as well. Raising kids is another topic best left alone. Just because that no good brother of hers is bringing shame to her family, that’s not her moms fault. It was her dads-uncaring attitude.

You must try and make some meaningful effort to love her mom and not involve your mom in the conversation. The good book would have said it better if it would have said. “Leave your mom and cling to your wife and her mom, if you know what’s good for you. Your sister, can love your mom if she needs some attention, after all that’s her job.”

So now enough of the goofiness and lets get serious about our Moms and wives. The hand that rocks the cradle truly is the hand that rocks the world. Any man with a lick of brains can see that. This is hard to say being a man, but most of the trouble on this earth doesn’t come from women. This would be a far more peaceful earth if it were left up to women to run it. On the other hand, our kids would be far better off if when they got home from school and opened the door and yelled, “Mom,” if the answers was always “What?” Men are not as well equipped to live alone as women. Back to the good book. It say’s, “It is not good for man to live alone.” It doesn’t say much about women. I salute you Mom’s and wives, and happy Mothers Day.
                                                 

Blue blood


                                                                                                                                  
 I didn’t get up at 4 a.m. the other day to watch the royal wedding from across the pond.  I’ll take that back. I did get up about that time for a pressing problem, but it had nothing to do with the wedding, and I did go back to sleep. There was a time in my life, and not too long ago, when I didn’t pay much attention to Royal Families. I figured they put their knickers on just like I did—one leg at a time.  But this week has opened my eyes to something, I think, that bares attention. I say this, after watching the excitement that came out of this event, in both the British Isles and here at home.

Maybe that’s what we need to feel good about our country and ourselves—a royal family that seems to be above reproach. Goodness knows we have our elected leaders, our sports figures and movie stars to dote on—but they will never suffice. Sooner, or later, they will disgrace themselves and leave office, or rent a boat and some hookers, or get in a bar fight, or act like Charlie Sheen. We can’t have that—we need someone squeaky clean, who stays that way, and has nothing to do with politics.

Let’s do this. Let’s find some old mansion somewhere, someplace, maybe a fixer-upper and let’s make it into a palace. The Governor’s mansion in St. Paul comes to mind. Most of our governors won’t live there anyway, and Governor Dayton already has some houses. Let’s find us a king and queen and proclaim them blue blood. Hey, I’m going to go it alone on this one and suggest Joe Mauer. The job would be a lot easier on Joe’s legs than squatting in the dirt at Target Field—and everybody loves Joe—right?  Joe can pick his own queen but maybe we could get him a glass slipper to fill or something like that. She doesn’t need to be a “10” for cripes sake. Look at Queen Elizabeth. I know....I know....she’s an octogenarian so cut her a little slack. But truth be told, she was no knockout even back in her courting days. Her husband married for the money and everybody knows that. OH, and by the way, if King Joe does find himself a babe. Let’s knock off that curtsy crap. That’s just pathetic.

 I know the Twins are paying Joe big bucks, but hey, Jim Pohlad, let’s take one for the Gipper on this. It’s our country we’re talking about here, right? Let’s pony up for this and forget next fall’s election contributions. Hey, it’s a great tax write-off, too. Joe to be fair how about a little cut in pay. You’ll sell more ice cream as King anyway. How about a trade? Bert will come back and pitch again, if Gardy promises not to yank him after ninety pitches, unless it’s still the first inning. Also, we’ll throw in a player, to be named later, and a stack of Minnesota lotto tickets, and dinner at Herbek’s.

 I know it’s late in the game, but even England started someplace, right, and come to think about it, they have a few skeletons in their closet they are overlooking. Cutting off wives heads was not cool. Let’s do this so, someday, some American girl can walk down the isle of a big Cathedral in this country, and be our Princess or Queen, and then I’ll get up at 4 a.m. and get all giddy, too. So chaps, I better bloody well go now.  Cheerio, and all that sort of rot you know.





Saturday, May 14, 2011

A Rite of Spring


                                             
There are something’s old men do better then young men and ruminating is one of them. You see we have refined the thought process down to an art because we have so much past material in them old gray heads to work with. Today with the spring sun high in the sky and water running in the ditches, my thoughts go back to my youth and what spring meant to me back then, or should I say-- way back then.

I remember sitting in fifth grade class in Staples School back then. There was just one school in Staples. No Elementary or Middle school or classes for the gifted or the not so gifted. We all just got along in one big building, the big kids on one end and the little ones on the other. But back to fifth grade and those spring breezes blowing in the classroom window. You would steal a trip to the pencil sharpener just so you could get a look outside and see what you were missing. All to often the teacher would walk by and rap you on the head with her pencil to snap you out of your daydreams. Yea, she could do that. If you told your dad on her he would give you another rap and it might not be with a pencil, so you kept those things to yourself.

At recess and before school we would shoot marbles on the dirt playground. Let me define playground for you. A great big empty gravel lot. Each kid had his little bag with cat eyes and crockies and the dreaded steelie’s in it. Steelie’s were easy to come by in a railroad town as they came from the roller bearings in the boxcars. The best ones came from steam engines and they were about the size of a golf ball. We would play pot where everybody anted up and put one mib, as we called them, into the pot.  Then from a line about fifteen or twenty feet away you rolled your shooter and the first one in the pot or the closest to the pot won. Another game was mumbly peg where you showed off your skill with your pocketknife doing different tricks with it. What’s that a knife in school? Yea, you could bring your knife to school.  Every boy had one but he also had something else called common sense. No one ever threatened anyone with a knife. That all started much later, after they banned knifes in school. We caught tadpoles and put them into a fruit jar and watched them grow. The girls made hop scotch grids on every sidewalk in town and showed of their athleticism. There wasn’t much more for them back then. Maybe some jump rope but all in all they seemed happy. So do you think today that boys would abandon their x-boxes for a bag of mibs? Would girls set down their cell phones to go jump rope? Do kids now days even know what a tadpole looks like? Oh, maybe if they saw it on the National Geographic Channel between x-box war games.

Yes. We now worry about our fat kids, and bored kids, and if the schools are feeding them the right things physically as well as academically. We have formed a more perfect world. For every action there is a reaction and I’m going beyond physics here. Guess what? You sit on your duff all day, you’ll get fat. You feed your mind violence and smut on the television or computer, and you’ll get a sick mind.  Now come on over here so I can give you a rap on the head with my pencil. What’s that better not? You’ve got a lawyer.