Family

Friday Fictioneers 11-05-2021

Many thanks to the wonderful Rochelle for herding us cats on Friday Fictioneers. We write micro-stories inspired by a new photo each week, provided by very creative and imaginative compatriots. Here is the photo and my story for this week.

Click on this week’s PHOTO PROMPT © Jennifer Pendergast to link to Rochelle’s Blog.

 

Genre: Fiction
Word count: 100
Title: Krumpas Coop

Excruciating pain shot from my foot to my brain. I yelled, “Those damn Legos are diabolical. That hurt!”

Mary yelled back, “Are Steven and Julie there?”

I said, “I think the Krampas got them. The window is open and no sign of them.”

Mary walked in, “Well Krampas knows how to write.” She handed me the note.

I read aloud, “The ransom is a bag of M&M’s, a gallon of Rocky Road ice cream, and two new ponies.”

As I handed the note back, we heard giggling coming from the attic.

I asked, “Do we negotiate with terrorists or Krampas?”

Look both ways and mind the gaps.
Especially when Legos are involved.

Click on Krumpas to read other stories.

Friday Fictioneers: Julie’s Gold Mine

PHOTO PROMPT © Roger Bultot. Click picture for Rochelle’s blog.

Julie said, “Dad, you don’t understand. You buy used cars. Same thing. It looks like a lot, but you’ll get change.”

I said, “I see. One person’s trash is another’s treasure.”

“Exactly!”

I handed the cashier a twenty. She held out my change, “Would you like to donate to our feed the poor project?”

I said, “Of course,” handing her another five.

When shopping came up at dinner, Steven said, “Secondhand sales and peer-to-peer marketing is a hundred-billion-dollar business. In Austin, the fastest growing retail market is in junk stores. And there’s the rental game.”

“My, how things have changed.”

Look both ways to see that resale and rental retailers are thriving in the pandemic – and not just because brick and mortars were shuttered.
Mind the gaps. They may have fleas.

Click on Julie and Hoss to read other FF stories.

 

Sammi’s Weekender #229 (caboodle)

Click to find Sammi.

It’s All Just Stuff

Measure married history
with social mobility
and acquired caboodle from:

Abilene to Ankara, Turkey,
then back with bounty
to College Station.
Then Woodville.
Then Abilene again,
and on to Del Rio.

Sacramento before
Fort Worth,
then to Guam
for booty from China Pete’s,
Korea, and South Pacific trips.
Back to SAC,
then to San Antonio.

Edmund, Oklahoma,
and Albany, Texas preceded
San Antonio’s redux.

Florida came before Seattle.
Finally,
Georgetown with another
van of encumbrances.
Stuff.
And memories….

Look both ways for what was and will be.
Count blessings, mind gaps, and cherish memories.
Measure happiness and adventure carefully.

 

Sammi’s Weekender #228 (portmanteau)

Click for Sammi’s Blog.

 

Little Blue Suitcase

Mom’s sister,
Lorry, was so apropos,
most correct old maid aunt
in navy blue turban with pin,
granny glasses,
self-assured in sensible shoes,
purse over left forearm,
her small portmanteau
gripped right,
I loved Lorry, now I know.
But then one day,
I had to let Lorry go.
Back then,
what the hell did I know,
long, long ago?

Look both ways, to the past for memories,
to the future for better days.
Mind the gaps in memory but hold on to what you can.

The Greatest Gift

There’s joy,
in the smiles of others,
in visions of those we love,
people we care about,
that is where truest,
most honest, happiness thrives.

To see such dancing zest is to feel
the same in my bones, heart, and mind;
while tears of delight run down
my cheeks. When babies laugh.
Hope laden felicity. Even
an old man simply must smile.

To sing and dance
with those we love most,
to see and hear them rise
in rebirth to life’s glorious days,
to overcome fears and sadness
that come with what we call
our human condition.

How strange, that we may
give or receive no greater gift,
no higher prize,
no nourishing of the spirit,
no deeper love than to allow
others to be and to see us
high on being alive.
Even more, to here and now
let love swirl among us all. Hallelujah!

Look both ways for the joy of love.
Mind the gaps, but live and let live.

Sammi’s Weekender (unknown)

Turning Into the Wind

I wish
I didn’t know now
what I didn’t know then,
back when my lost
happiness was
still unknown.

Before I won these emotional
and physical scars;
blissfully, foolishly ignorant;
lucky, privileged;
without foible; free to be me;
a self-centered fool
with a college degree.

Now a recovered lover
of painful truths I never sought.
But I’m proud of our past.

Look both ways,
to the earth and into the heavens,
into the night and through each day’s light.
Mind the gaps and face the facts. It was what it was, and so were we.

 

Sammi’s Weekender #211 (nomenclature)

Click to go to Sammi’s blog

Handle With Care

Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge,
in the 10th of Poemcrazy said,
“in practical shoes, holding forth
with firm opinions”
were too many Sues.

Birthed and baptized, lacking
middle saintly nomenclature,
seeking to assert rightful independence,
Confirmation granted my pick,
Saint Bartholomew, a sub
for unsainted Bartley.

Mom had a fit. We fought.
She wanted Richard. I did not.
Constant embarrassment,
my lifelong reminder,
my middle moniker: John.
I wish I agreed to Richard,
at least a better memory.

Look both ways for better self-names. How often would we change?
I’m Dad, Opa, Mister Bill to some, cantankerous (and other adjectives)
Bill or Billy to the few.
Mind the gaps where we may only name things, pets, and kids.

Parody Poetry: Older than before (NaPoWriMo day 26)

For NaPo day 26, I was to write a parody. I was to find a poem or song and write an altered version of it. A parody is also called a spoof, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on something, or a caricature. It is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or make fun of its subject by means of satiric or ironic imitation.

I decided to work on the song(s) “Old Hippie” by the Bellamy Brothers, a classic paean to male boomers that many of us related to. David Bellamy wrote three of these: one at 35, one at 45, and one at 55. Mine goes to 75 (the age of the other brother) and is more about me.

He turns seventy-five on a Tuesday
sometime late this next July.
Can’t believe his friends’ all dead,
but down the same old road he’ll  still try
to understand and to keep his level head.
But now he craves those crazy days
with his shoulders back,
his chin held proud and high.
He still looks at life and wonders why.
He stopped with church and never prays
but he never wonders when he’ll die.

He still loves old soft county rock,
his poems come from just such songs.
His only friends are now computer faces,
and medicine pros working to help him get along,
with medical-grade stainless steel heart parts.
But he’ll run no more endurance races,
Just the tips and bits on legs that hate him.

He’s an old soldier who wants to be
a hippie getting older every day,
with hair and colors and closet disco music.
An old hippie who knows what life is for,
still wanting to be her man, before
she goes knocking on his door.

He’s an old man who always hated war,
but seemed to know what it was for.
He’s been confused by a government
he both supports and finds disgusting,
and people who tell him to forgive,
while he decides to let them live.

He likes people but not in crowds.
He craves his tribe, but they’ve all died.
Spending quiet time at home alone,
his kids are still his universe,
and Texas is still his home.

He’s a boomer till the day he dies,
he now fears life more than death,
he’s looked at evil in the eye
believes in love and wonders why,
then drums to ten below his breath.

Look both ways and avoid reading the obituaries.
Mind the gaps in everything but believe
you’re this damn old.

Poetry: Single Deed (NaPoWriMo day 21)

On the 21st day of April, Napo challenged me to create of poem like the “creepy” nursery rhyme, “There was a man of double deed.” While the prompt and example did not require rhyme, it felt better for me to pair them, as in the double deed piece. While this is one long poem of nine rhyming couplets, I broke the “how and when” sequence at line eight because the focus of the narrator changed. This dark poem is no nursery rhyme.

How old is old enough?
When did life become so tough?
How much time is yours or mine?
When will come our final chime?
How did life become this game?
When can we end all such pain?
How much loss can we endure?
When it’s over, will we be sure?
What we had for all those years,
How sad for us, all those tears.
What have we left of memories?
Let’s dance to end bad remedies.
What has life given us in the end?
How much love we failed to spend?
Here I am to make my plea.
I am here love, please set me free.
How long are lives strong enough?
Let us know when life gets rough.

Look both ways when the road is blocked.
Life has a beginning, middle, and an end,
but mind the gaps where the unbearable lingers.

Poetry: Dad’s Ways (NaPoWriMo day 15)

For today’s NaPo prompt, I was supposed to think about (as in remember) a small habit I picked up from one of my parents. Then, I was to write, first about remembering my parent engaged in that behavior before writing about me doing the same thing.

I can do none of that. I recall no small habits of Mom or Dad, much less identify any I copied.

This prompt is one of several generative writing prompts created by Juan Martinez for his college-age creative writing students at Northwestern University. I’ve not been a college student for many years and probably completed my undergraduate degree before Professor Martinez was born.

But I wanted to write a poem from this prompt. Since Martinez used the term generative, I felt comfortable using his idea as the genesis for one applicable to my life by adjusting the parental habit concept to my father. Several of my father’s customs so irritated me that I intentionally do the opposite, do not do them, or if I ever did, I stopped copying them many years ago. This is not phyco-babble. I loved my Dad (sort of) but I despised much of what he did.

That way, I can remember and write about him while also writing about me not engaging in the same behavior, a bit of a reverse of the NaPo prompt. The original theme of a poem about my parent’s habits remains.

I loved him and I think
he loved me, but I can’t recall
him saying it. I’m freer with
I love you’s, hugs, and kisses. I don’t think
Mom considered him a good man.

He had only apple butter and cold
processed meat sandwiches as a kid.
I learned about apple butter at Jimmy’s house.
It was not allowed in ours.

Except for some dining-out places,
I hate for people to wait on or to serve me,
he seemed to expect it,
especially from my Mom.

His teeth spent nights in a glass with water,
I am meticulous about dental hygiene.

He smoked himself to death. I quit long ago.
He had religion. I gave that up too.
He often laid on the couch. I never do.

Our bathroom sink was always disgusting
because of his mess. I clean mine several times
each day and never leave it wet. I don’t think
I’m anal, but I pick up my shit and fix cockeyed things.

I learned how to do things and to have the right tools
before I start. He learned as he worked,
never with the right tool for the job.
I watched his frustration and learned
what not to do.

He didn’t drive. I have a motorcycle.
He smelled too much of cologne,
like a French whore house to me.
I never use scented products to smell attractive.

I believe exercise is good medicine,
he didn’t think so. I fight with my temper,
he often lost his without guilt. I tried to keep away
from him and that violent loss of control.

His ethnic epithets seemed normal Archie
Bunker stuff, I avoid them because of him,
not due to today’s PC environment. It was called
All In the Family, if you don’t know.

It seems to me that my Dad’s good influence
on me was letting me see, hear, and smell
that meat-and-potatoes Irishman who
I believe, did the best he could, and I knew
all along Mom wanted better.

Look both ways at their foibles and yours.
Nobody’s perfect, of course,
but mind the gaps to be the best you can.