Monday Madness: A Christmas Carol
A Christmas Carol
“Mind the Gap” cautions this morning’s coffee mug with a map of London’s underground. Summer 2009 we gave Malinda and Kristen a week in London, and they returned with a souvenir that brings it all back. The trip, the trains, the recorded voice at each stop,
It gets personal too. On the balcony last evening as the light faded and the pelicans flew west and the shrimp boats appeared, I sat down and read. First in The Story of J toward the end, where Bloom expounds on J’s Joseph character, a tattletale brat who ends up a dream come true. Bloom writes well if quite at length, whether because the Joseph tale is the longest of all or because a professor knows to fill ex number of pages to have a book to sell.
Second read, a piece a friend emailed linking to an NYT article where I found myself hiding among the bad guys. Not as good or as smart as I may appear to be, wearing the black shirt, white collar and enhallowed but not wizened by a head of white hair. “Good morning, Father.” It’s almost as good as ”Good morning, Commander, may I bring your coffee, sir?” But not quite. At ease, it’s only me, Carroll the ancient yuletide troll, neither as good nor as smart as thinkle peep. Wisdom or Folly: the chasm between persona and the Bubba, the “Mind the Gap” sign recalls Huck Finn and Jim with the King and the Duke that third night of The Royal Nonesuch. It could happen any Sunday morning Bubba is billed as preacher: Huck’s recollection, “I smelt sickly eggs by the barrel, and rotten cabbages, and such things; and if I know the signs of a dead cat being around, and I bet I do, there was sixty-four of them went in.” Take up the collection and head for the raft.
Second read, a piece a friend emailed linking to an NYT article where I found myself hiding among the bad guys. Not as good or as smart as I may appear to be, wearing the black shirt, white collar and enhallowed but not wizened by a head of white hair. “Good morning, Father.” It’s almost as good as ”Good morning, Commander, may I bring your coffee, sir?” But not quite. At ease, it’s only me, Carroll the ancient yuletide troll, neither as good nor as smart as thinkle peep. Wisdom or Folly: the chasm between persona and the Bubba, the “Mind the Gap” sign recalls Huck Finn and Jim with the King and the Duke that third night of The Royal Nonesuch. It could happen any Sunday morning Bubba is billed as preacher: Huck’s recollection, “I smelt sickly eggs by the barrel, and rotten cabbages, and such things; and if I know the signs of a dead cat being around, and I bet I do, there was sixty-four of them went in.” Take up the collection and head for the raft.
Shorter walk this morning, but good. Before leaving here I meant to snap the Bay with ominous clouds, but forgot so over the Bill Lloyd Building of Cove School HNES about 6:45 AM.
Some places are more holy than others' temples. Walk down Linda Avenue, round Massalina Drive past that old Tahoe that’s sitting there gathering leaves. I want it. It recalls 1947 postwar when vehicles were short and my father was having troubling getting a new truck. He’d had a Chevrolet on order from Bubber Nelson, waited a year or more, finally went to Karl Wiselogel and ordered a Dodge, both on order and he’d take whichever one came in first. Prejudiced then and now, I said, “I hope the Chevrolet comes first.” “So do I,” my father said. But it was the Dodge, and it was okay. Red with black fenders in pre-war style, headlamps sitting on top of the fenders like bug eyes. That turn of events cycled our family through the green 1948 Dodge sedan when my mother and I wanted a Buick Super, then the 1949 Plymouth woody wagon of many fond memories.
How did I get here this morning. Back to the theatre. “We never showed a light till we was about ten mile below the village.”
Why does The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn require a rewrite. Because it was politically incorrect, OMG is it. Well, it’s not possible to tar Mark Twain as a 21st century liberal, but the PC edition is no worse than updating the King James Bible.
Time for shave, shower and staff meeting.
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