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Matter of Measurement

Matter of Measurement
by Job Conger

How much. . . .
does the human heart weigh?

The reference librarian
who looked it up for a poem
John Knoepfle would write
said that it weighs
between  nine and twelve ounces, and
I am sure that she is correct
but only in her fashion;
only in her grasp
of one metaphor
of reality.

My grasp
of reality
suggests that sometimes
the human heart weighs
much more
than
that.

– written October 27, 1996
===========================
John Knoepfle is a terrific poet, originally from Ohio but living in Auburn, Illinois and now Springfield. We’ve talked over the years since I attended a workshop when he was a professor of English at Sangamon State University, and I’ve purchased and read many of his books of poetry. I tried to write this in the rhythm and short-phrased “voice” of many of his poems, a voice that also is immediately evident in his speech. He shared the point about how much the heart weighs according to a librarian in one of his poems I read, and it inspired my poem shared above. Even though the final point is mine, I like to think John would agree with me. This poem was published in my second book of poetry, Wit’s End, no longer available.

Live long . . . . . and proper.

Facebook Autobiog Jabber

The following is my response to an “Autobiography” tag by a Facebook friend. I can’t figure out how to comply with her tag at Fb, so I’m sharing it here at Honey & Quinine because I know it will appear later today at Fb, and the world will suffer through more jabber about MOI than it deserves:

1. Where did you take your profile picture? I didn’t. Co author of my next book from Arcadia Publishing took it at the Beer Can Collectors of America national conveition in Springfield, Illinois at the the Prairie Capital Convention Center last September.t.

2. What exactly are you wearing right now? Jeans, and a sweatshirt over an old dress shirt.

3. What is your current problem?  I”m not working where I should be working.

4. What makes you happy most? Sharing convivial conversation with a friend or friends.

5. What’s the name of the song that you’re listening to? Imagens Do Noreste – on the Hanser-McClellan Guitar Duo CD Jango.

6. Any celeb you would marry? Diane Keaton in a heartbeat.

7. Name someone with the same birthday as you? Famous:  (same year and everything); no one I know about  Not famous: no one I know about

8. Ever sang in front of a large audience? Yes, but too rarely.

9. Has anyone ever said you look like a celebrity? Yes: Rin Tin Tin on a bad day.

10. Do you still watch kiddy movies or kiddie TV shows? not one

11. Do you speak any language? Yes

12. Has anyone you’ve been really close with passed away? Yes.

13. Do you ever watch MTV? Only for the videos? no

14. What is something that really annoys you? Willful ignorance.

Chapter 1:
=====================

1. Middle name: Clifton

2. Nickname(s): Govnah. given by a good friend when I was in the restaurant bidness. I called him Fingers and he called me Govnah.

3. Current location: at my home office desk in the great state of Springfield, Ill Ennui.

4. Eye color: brown

Chapter 2:
=====================

1. Are your parents married/separated/divorced  yes, though both have been dead for at least the past 25 years.

Chapter 3: Favorites:
===========================

1. Ice Cream: Swiss Chocolate Almond

2. Seasons: fall

3. Shampoo/conditioner: Head and Shoulders

Chapter 4: Do You…
===========================

1. Dance in the shower? no

2. Do you write on your hand? no

3. Call people back? yes

4. Believe in love? yes

5. Any bad habits? yes

6. Any mental health issues? yes: the March 2002 issue and October 2008 issue.

Chapter 5: Have You…
=============================

1. Broken a bone? yes

2. Sprained anything? no

3. Had physical therapy? no

4. Gotten stitches? yes

5. Taken painkillers? yes

6. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling? yes

7. Been stung by a bee? yes

8. Thrown up at the dentist? no

9. Sworn in front of your parents?  yes.

10. Had detention? once

Chapter 6: Who/What was the last
===================================

1. Movie(s): at home? Schindler’s List.

2. Three people to text you?  none

3.Person you called? I don’t remember.

4. Time you cried? I don’t remember.

5. Person you tackled? Let’s not go there.

6. Person you texted? I don’t text.

7. Thing you touched? I don’t think I have yet touched the last thing I will have touched.

8. Thing you ate? a can of Chilli Man chilli in a pan. The company spells it with two “l’s.”

9. Thing you drank? iced tea

10. Thing you said? “If I don’t see you tomorrow, have a good one.”

HOW I END MY SENTENCES
===============================

1. My ex… N/A.

2. Maybe I should… avoid having any Lysol in the house.

3. I love…impossibilities too generously.

4. People would say that… I have too much starch in my shorts.

5. I don’t understand why… people drive like they’re napping behind the wheel.

6. When I wake up in the morning… I’m glad I made it into consciousness.

7. I lost my optimism for my employer.

8. Life is full of illogical outcomes.

9. My past is my happiness.

10. I get annoyed very quickly… around people who blurt instead of conversing.

11. Parties are…great opportunities to glimpse a millimeter into the lives of strangers I will never remember.

12. I wish life… did not seem so short in front and so long in back.

13. Dogs are… fun to play with but I wouldn’t want to own one.

14. Cats are.. like shelves of books: they listen nicely but don’t say much.

15. Tomorrow is… a girl named Sam.

16. I have a low tolerance for…lactose.

17. If I had a million dollars I would…spend half on wine, women and song, and the other half I would spend foolishly.

18. I’m totally terrified of….being murdered as I sleep.

19. Right now…I am “one too many mornings and a thousand miles behind.”

Third grade addendum
. . . . John Liebman was a physical education teacher at Lawrence. To a bookish ignoramus with no interest in sports whose greatest athletic claim to fame was my ability to walk to school and back without falling down, who was the only kid in the world who didn’t know every rule of big league baseball and every player on the St. Louis Cardinals and New York Yankees, I regarded him as a harbinger of embarrassment. Lawrence had a gymnasium on the top floor where I enjoyed shooting baskets, but there there were few demands. We all got along. When warm weather arrived, it became known to us we would be playing baseball on the new area slightly trimmed as a diamond. I dreaded this and confided in dad, I didn’t know how I would going to handle baseball the next day. Dad said to just be honest with Mr. Liebman, tell him you were not an experienced player, and I was sure I’d mess things up. So I did. He responded not with righteous indignity, but with sympathy; told me this was not a high stakes game. Other kids were as inexperienced as I, just pay attention, catch and throw the ball the best I could, and all would be fine. It was. When  Years later, I’d encounter John Liebman at Ben Franklin Junior High. I greeted him like an uncle I hadn’t seen in a long time, and he greeted me like a nephew. He was always as patient as a saint, but as slick a professional as I ever knew. Later still, I discovered him when I was 30-something and attending First Methodist Church downtown. He and his wife were members. He was one of three teachers I wish I had been able to know better when attending public school. Teachers weren’t meant to be friends; they were meant to be teachers. So it is written and so it shall be.
Fourth Grade

. . . . Before school began or sometime soon after, for a short period, Dot returned home from nurses training in Leavenworth, Kansas  — it might have been Barnes in St. Lou — and slept on the sofa in the living room. St. John’s Hospital had announced its new nursing school, she enrolled and soon found an apartment on Fourth Street with a girlfriend, also a nursing school student. Her name was Pat Fultz. Pat was incredibly good-looking, daughter of a successful physician and grat fun. Every friend Dot brought home for dinner or around the house was wonderful to be around. Another friend, whom she dated about that time was Jim Davis, son of another physician. We went to Davis’ home on the west side of Lake Springfield. Often, Dad would not let Dot go out on a date without taking me, and sometimes Bill and me, tagging along.
. . . . . That’s how I got to know a couple of interesting eateries: The Milk Bar, on MacArthur, a few doors south of Ash, which had a great juke box and was a sunny, friendly place, and The Sugar Bowl at State and South Grand. It was a little more modern and cleaner, but also a wonderful place to eat lunch. After the Sugar Bowl closed, the place was renovated and for years it was the Avenue Food Shop, a terrific grocery, one of the last surviving family-owned places that was about as large as the long-gone Piggly Wiggly on the southeast corner of Ash at MacArthur. Piggly Wiggly closed, was razed, and in its place was built the home of Mary Lou Atkins, daughter of Springfield City Purchasing Agent Clark Atkins who waa one of mom’s first supervisors at City Hall. These were exciting times for a tag-along brother.
Details of how I started fourth grade are lost to my memory.  I believe that I attended Lawrence for the first semester. The school district decreed that kids living south of Ash street would leave Lawrence starting in second semester to attend the new Blackhawk School on College.  I remember saying “goodbye” to friends at Lawrence during my last day there. There’s also the possibility I attended Lawrence just a few days in September grade before transferring to Blackhawk. John Forneris, Bob Briggle, Loretta Whitney did not move to Blackhawk.
. . . . . My teacher was Mrs. McGrath, a mature woman, trim as a whistle and probably married to a physician or lawyer if the way she dressed was a valid indicator. She was an exemplary teacher. I don’t have one lasting impression that does not recall her has first class from the get-go.
. . . . . . . . Everything sparkled. Tile replaced wood floors. There were basketball courts and hopscotch grids on the large area of asphalt 50 feet from hte back entrance to school. And there as a sense of discipline imparted by the principal, Mr. Blair, starting with lunchtime when we would line up at the end of our hall. Hr. Blarir would personally open the door to a perpendicular hall that led the lunchroom/ne/inside gyn/ne auditoriuyml At the end of the hall where we lined up, right agross from the administrative offices of the school, was a tall, gold-painted statue of Chief Blackhawk of the northern Iollinois tribe of the same hame, I thikk.  Every day, Mr. Blair would caution us to “walk; don’t run and single file no talking to the lunchroom There we would buy half-pints of white or chocolate milk and eate our sack lunches at tables which folded into wall receptacles like beds when lunch was not in session. Lunches, mom-made, were usually two baloney or summer sausage (some said salami) sandwiches on Butternut white bread with Hellman’s mayonnaise. Somethimes we’d have a banana or an apple in the sack too. The fragrance of the big room was unique to Blackhawk, of the orange material the janitor Mr. Lakitis to mix with dust and whatever else was on the floor when he swept it. It was too grainy to be called powder and too small to be called pellets. It was sweet-smelling and, he said, helped keep the dust and other particles together as he swept.
. . . . The reason I remember starting at Blackhawk at the end of first semester is because of an incident that happened, I believe, on the first day I ate lunch in the lunchroom/gym. On that day, I left the big room by myself and accidentally exited the building through a door that opened to a part of the school grounds I had never seen.There was a chill in the air like nothing in September. I found myself alone, out in a parking lot and was overcome by a sense of being LOST again. This time I didn’t go looking for strangers for help. I walked out to (what I know now was) Lenox Avenue, looked east and west and headed east, walking close to the side of the school building. When I saw recognizable turf on the building’s east side, I walked into a familiar hall through a familiar door, recognized my room and walked in a few minutes late after lunch. The grownups behaved as though nothing serious had happened, but the memory of about two minutes of incipient doom stayed with me. Still, the upside was that I had not panicked, and I found my way “home.”
. . . . Within a few days, we all learned we should wait at the exit door as time for the bell approached, and we’d be turned loose when the bell rang like the start of the New York Marathon. It was always a race for me. Many of us did the fastest “walk” we could, and I was usually the first back at the door to Mrs. McGrath’s room. The rest of the classmates would arrive within seconds, and we’d all wait for her to unlock the door from the inside. One day I was feeling exceptionally frisky after lunch and arrived first at the door, put both hands around the handle, pulled and the door opened, breaking the rest of the hall side of the door where the lock had been holding it shut. I had opendd a locked door, and no one was more surprised than me. It was an accident, and there were no disciplinary actions taken.
. . . . Next to the door of each classroom was a large display window in which students and teachers would arrange displays relating to seasons, history and events. For about a month, well into the school year, Mrs. Norvell’s room next to ours, had a display of some really well-built plastic model airplanes, neatly painted. I dreamed of making some as well some day. It didn’t take long to learn that a 6th grader named Larry Small had built them. His model of a well-built Monogram kit of a Douglas B-26 Invader, with a neatly painted anti-glare panel in front of the windshield made a particularly lasting impression. Later I met Larry, and we joined the same Methodist Youth Fellowship group at Laurel Methodist Church.
. . . .Joining MYF in fourth grade was natural. I had been attending Sunday school at Laurel for two or three years. When we went to Leavenworth to see Aunt Stelle, I even attended a Methodist Sunday school class so I could maintain my perfect attendance record which ran through second and third grades before I missed one, and began to miss more and more. We met in the church basement at Laurel. I found during this time, I could affect how the class went by my behavior: what I said, whether I was making “wise cracks” or contributing to the lesson. One Sunday, my Sunday school teacher called me aside after class. He said he saw some real ability in me; leadership ability. People were paying attention to me, and that was great. He said he appreciated my contributions and explained that I could go far with my “gift.” And he asked me to channel my attention to successfully engaging the lesson instead of getting laughs. I promised him I would. And I did.
. . . . . .Friends I knew only at Laurel included Harry Najem, whose parents were from Lebanon. Harry, in fourth grade, looked like a professor, and his family looked like nuclear physicists. That’s just how they carried themselves. Cheerful, not a fiber of a suit out of place. Jack Wood was another friend, sharp and full of laughter. I continued at Sunday school regularly but not keeping perfect attendance, until I was in ninth grade. During that time I did not attend ONE church service  upstairs in the sanctuary. Mom and dad dropped us off at the front door to the church and picked us up after. Sometimes we’d walk home, about five blocks. It was fun! The summer between fourth and fifth grades is almost lost to me. Jay and Mike had gone with their parents to Buffalo. Mr. & Mrs. Graham had moved in, mature, gray-haired, grand-parentish and smiling all the time.
. . . . I believe that summer Dot graduated from St. John’s Nurses Training School. Ceremonies were held at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception on the south edge of downtown. We all attended, my first time in a Catholic Church. The knee pads for praying were a surprise and confusing at first. I was impressed with the dignity of everything. We were all incredibly proud of Dorothy Conger, and I am to this day.

Coming next . . . . Fifth Grade

Live long . . . . .   and proper.

Dissin Dat

I’m too often inclined to be hurt by perceived shards from the sky before the sky falls. Take yesterday . . . . please.  I fired up the dictation machine I use for playing back interviews of people slated for my articles in the business monthly. The first interview for the January issue had gone well, and I wanted to squeeze in half an hour of transcribing “quotable quotes” and unquoted facts while setting up other interviews and then heading for Rock City. I rewound the microcassette in the machine to save the recorder’s batteries and hit play. It had all been routine up to that point.

        What I heard was not the most recent interview, but one I had recorded with the acting director of the Dana-Thomas House a few months ago. YERKS! I fast forwarded to pass it by, apparently some old talk remained on the front end of the tape. . . . . MORE of the same gentleman, totally NOT the dulcet tones of the state employee from the day before! CHEESES! Maybe it was the wrong side of the tape.  I fast forwarded to the end of the tape, flipped it and listened to railroad relocation rally interviews from last August. Fast forwarded for two minutes at a time and listened to two-second sound blurts, all from August until I was half way through the tape and could rule out a really late start. Took the tape out and inserted another tape I had taken from the desk to use with the next interviews. Maybe I had switched tapes and forgotten. More listening, more sound blurbs, more no joy. Back to the original. Fast forwarded a little more on the side where I had started. More D-T House director! Another THREE minutes of fast forward and finally success! A familiar voice came through! I had just enough time to write a note to myself, ”THE INTERVIEW IS HERE” so I wouldn’t return from work and a First Night Springfield Volunteer meeting having forgotten the morning ordeal. Unfortunately, I was so bummed from the meeting I was in no mood to write. It was typical “down time Monday  night.” I overate dinner, napped and awakened in time for the last five minutes of Charlie Rose, piddled in the office and model workshop until it was time for the “Scrubs” re-runs at 1:30, hit the hay at 2:30 and was back to journalism at 9:00 today and to Rock Circus later.  Most of article number one is done. That was like eating ice cream before the vegetables. To guard against perceived falling sky, I shall be sure future tapes are rewound completely before I hit “record” for the next interview.

Rock Circus seems to be saner this week than last, thanks in part to the owner keeping busy away from the showroom. 

Recent lessons too short for my Iced Tea Chronicles . . . . The glass pot for boiling water for tea – which a friend gave me for my birthday in September, two days after I purchased a stainless steel kettle for the same mission — died an honorable death recently, smithereened by a large skillet which lost its  balance on the top of my refrigerator and fell on it. The kettle is doing fine. Sunday I thought we were having a storm siren weather drill with a new sound.

I’ve decided HOT tea must be made with water brought to a boil on the top of my stove. Microwaving water is not the same. Usually, I don’t leave the kitchen when I put the water on — you’ve heard of water jackets? (bad stretch) — for fear of setting the house on fire after the water accidentally boils away. Besides, there’s always something to do in there: dishes to wash or put away from the drying rack, counter to clean, floor to sweep. etc.   As soon as condensing steam starts coming out the spout, I pour it into the cup with tea and half a packet of brown sugar. I did go back to the office Sunday afternoon after starting tea water, and the siren sound brought me back to the kitchen double-time. First time I heard two-note harmony for the first time with a tea pot.  Now I’ve decided I’ll stay in the kitchen until I hear the whistle for a few seconds as well. I won’t consider my hot tea complete and drinkable if I do not hear that whistle that seems to mimic the two notes played at the same time whan performing “Chopsticks” on the piano high to the right on the ivories.

So much for hot tea. I’ve settled into Luzianne FAMILY-SIZE bags for my iced tea, which I can make without sun on a cloudy day or at night as long as I use the hottest tap water.  Three big bags in a gallon jug for about five hours, and its great. I sweeten it when it’s done.  Until I’m totally out of white sugar, that’s what I’m using for the tea iced and instant coffee, but I’m using the brown sugar packets (gift of same friend who gave me the glass pot) exclusively for tea hot.
Recently a neighbor on the street gave me a partially consumed jug of Ocean Spray cranberry-juice- and- pomegranite juice combo. It’s sweeter than anything that’s come into my house — except for Erin on a good day (RIM shot!) — and after agreeing with him that it’s undrinkable by itself, I successfully cut my semi-dry Carlo Rossi Burgundy with it for a delightful beverage reminiscent of  cheap Muscatel without the body or distinctive nose. I’ve also combined it with  regular with iced tea with no sugar of any kind added. I GUESS it’s healthier for me. I am going to buy more of the combojuice.

Life for me is not a melody; it’s a drone note, like the one on a Scotch bag pipe or the fifth string on a bango — make that banjo.  At least I can sense some rhythm despite the sameness, a different dynamic. Sometimes the beat doesn’t need a melody. It’s enough all by itself.

Live long . . . . . . and proper.

The Highlight of My Year and More

The nighlight of my year was my first crush. At the time, I considered her my first true love. Diane Wilborn lived on the west side of College, about six houses south of Laurel. Jay Bruninga and I were mad about her, and I felt like the luckiest boy at Lawrence when she invited me over for Kool-Aid and cookies after school. She had an older sister Linda. Since that time, I have been in love with the name Linda, though my dream name for someone to whom I would give my heart eternally was Anne with an “e.”.
. . . . . It may have started with Wendy Booth’s mother Anne who was married to a true gentleman three doors north from us on Whittier. Byron (“By”) Booth was probably the father I wish I had had instead of my dad. We threw footballs across front yards often. My throwing ability improved a lot. And he married a terrific woman. But I digress.
. . . . .Every Anne I have cared for has been generally the brightest and blessed with more maturity than I have demonstrated, and blessed with a taste for more than I could provide.There have not been many, but I’ve tried extra hard with anyone with that name. I still love the name . . . . It must be Anne with an “e.”
. . . . Diane was heart throb #1. After hurried visits to Tony’s market across the street, to squander a nickel on candy, I’d ask a friend to deliver it to her or to a fragile, distinctively-voiced and also-blonde Jennifer Wilson, daughter of Arch Wilson, owner of Arch Wilson Men’s Clothiers on Fifth Street  downtown or Loretta Whitney. I never came close to even holding hands with any of them. We gazed and giggled, and that was what life was all about with me.
. . . . Wendy Booth, daughter of Anne and By, was an antagonist for some reason, though I got along fine with her parents.  Wendy was a genius and grew up to achieve significant fame in higher education.  Linda Dirksen, who was about my age but went th Blessed Sacrament, a Catholic school northwest of us (about the same walking distance as to Lawrence) was an acquaintance whom I admired and respected. She and her family moved out of the big brick house three doors south of Ash on the west side of Whittier during the summer after third grade. The Gernenz family moved in. Karen was a year older than me, blonde, statuesque and also smart as a tack. . . or is it sharp as a tack? No matter; she was both. Her sister Susan, blond, my brother Bill’s age was a shorter, vivacious clone of Karen. Mr. Gernenz was an official with the Baptist church. His wife was grey-haired — might have been silver-blonde — was as nice as grownups come. The whole family was first class. We had some good times from the start. Bill and I hung out in their back yard over several summers and they’d come over some times and hang out in our back yard.

I became a Cub Scout late in third  grade. Steve Grumman’s mon, Ken Hendricks’ mom, Danny Spears’ mom and later Bernie McCabe’s mom were den mothers. My mom couldn’t be one because she worked every day. Den meetings were after school at den mothers’ homes. We had monthly Pack meetings in the basement of First Christian Church downtown on the southeast corner of Sixth at Lawrence. Later I learned this was the same church that Vachel Lindsay’s family had attended.  During my Cub Scout days, I didn’t know poetry from Shinola.  Our scout troop visited the Butternut Bakery on west Jefferson Street, the Seven Up bottler on Clear Lake and the Illinois Air National Guard base. During that tour I stood on a maintenance ramp peering into the cockpit of a Republic F-84F Thunderstreak, and listened to (probably) a crew chief explain the airplane was armed with four .50 calibre machine guns in the fuselage (which I knew about already) and two in the wing roots (which I didn’t know about). I thought it wsa strange and pretty old-fashioned that a jet fighter would have guns int he wings; okay for World War II Mustangs and Spitfires, but strange for fast jets.
. . . . The neighborhood was changing. The Powells who had lived at 2020 next door to the south, moved out and the Tacks moved in. Paul tack was two years older than me and he loved airplane models as much as I did. One day I visited, and he showed me an Aurora kit of the Grumman F6F Hellcat he was building.  He explained, as he painted light green stripes on the ailerons, that these were aircraft carrier identification markings. I didn’t have more than a vague idea of what he meant.  In later years I learned about those markings andthat Paul should have painted them in white; not light green. I also remembered his model and with a little research during junior high school years, learned he had been modeling a Hellcat based on the carrier USS Intrepid.
. . . .Next door north, the Bruninga family moved out, to Buffalo where Red resumed his distinguished career as an FBI agent. No more “Chicken Delight, served just right.” When he retired, they moved back to Springfield, many years later.
. . . . As the weather warmed on Whittier the kids in our neighborhood learned about a new grade school being built about two blocks south and two blocks east.Blackhawk School would be for kids in 4th through 6th grades. During the early summer, I rode my bike over on an overcast, cool Sunday and found walls up and the fragrance of fresh cement. Alone and unobserved, I found a way into the layrinth of fresh-turned earth, red bricks and mortar. I crawled into the space between a floor and foundation, stepd quietly around a large room with freshly-dried concrete and wondered aobut my future. There was not a cound in the world, but it was light enough inside to see, and no one new I was there. I stayed probably 45 minutes. A solemn time for me. Then I came home.
. . . . Many of my friends had older sisters, usually three to five years older than my friends. Diane Wilborn had Linda, Nancy across the street had Lois, Steve Grummon’s sister was Becky, Jay and Mike had Linda, Greg Pease had Linda, and I had Dorothy, an idol of sorts to me.
. . . . When I was still in grade school, she was on the Springfield High Prom Court, graduated with honors and began training to be a registered nurse in Leavenworth, Kansas, later trained at Barnes Hospital in St. Louis and finished in Springfield when St. John’s Hospital opened a nurses training school. She became a surgical nurse, got marriend to a great fellow, Bob Shymansky, and moved out to Wheeling, West Virginia. As a kid in grade school, I would leaf through her incredible lab drawings of internal anatomy and her text books, amazed at her skill as an artist and her impeccable lettering on the drawings and her handwriting. I still am when I remember those drawings!
. . . . .Dot’s friends from high school included Elsie and her brother Stu Dobbs who lived at Lake Springfield. During one visit to their home with my sister, I got a whale of a splinter in my bare foot. Elsie’s mom spent most of the afternoon getting it out, using lots of rubbing alcohol, tweezers, and a safety pin, sterilized under a match flame. Elsie was great to be around. Stu, a few years older, a nice fellow as well.
. . . . During the summer between 3rd and 4th grades, we traded in our four-door Olds for a 1956 Dodge Coronet convertible from R.E. Broe Dodge/Chrysler/Plymouth downtown on Fourth Street, across from Bates Chcvrolet.  Bill and I knew this one was coming, and we waited eaterly by the street curb, looking north for the first sign of it. Dad drove it home from the dealer. What a wonderful car!
. . . . . In less than a month, mom, Dot, Bill, Dot’s boyfriend Roy Becket and I drove out to visit Aunt Stelle and Uncle Turner again. Roy was also training to be  a registered nurse. We knew it was unusual, but we thought it was great that he was heading for an excellent profession. He was a gentleman as far as I knew, and the fact that Dot was even dating him showed he was a good man.
. . . . We arrived in time for the Fourth of July. A kid with a dollar and a pack of book matches would have a lot of fun in Leavenworth that summer. Every grocery store in  that city sold fireworks and punks to light them with.  Bill and I would talk downtown from Aunt Stelle’s to buy them often. The whole summer was a joyful symphony of “BOOMS” from near and far. The firecracker of choice was about an inch long. A smaller firecracker, called “Ladyfingers” was thinner, with less “POP” but almost as long. We also bought sparklers, bottle rockets and larger rockets we could not afford in large numbers and the vaunted cherry bombs which were red, globe-like like a cherry, and very loud. Dangerous too. I became adept at lighting a standard firecracker with a punk and throwing it into the air before it exploded.  I also had a few Ladyfingers detonate between my thumb and forefinger attempting the same thing. They had a smaller, faster fuse, but aside from the noise so close to my ear when they detonated as I threw them, the damage to my fingers was insignificant and soon forgotten. I enjoyed setting off firecrackers in the dtrainage pipe openings from the two-foot stone wall bordering schoolyard across from the house.  Placed far enough into the drain, on detonation, they sounded and looked like cannon reports with smoke following the sound out the open end. Bill and I also set them off in the alley in neighbors’ garbage cans. We were reported to the police and were even written up in the Leavenworth paper. Uncle Turner showed me the small paragraph. We didn’t have to meet with the police, and there was no punishment except for stern admonitions from mom and Aunt Sttelle to stop bothering the neighbors, and we did.
. . . .While in Leavenworth I purchased my first airplane model magazine, A 1956 Flying Models with an illustration of two fellows launching team racers, a kind of control line flying model. Years later I purchased another copy of the same issue and have it today along with a few thousand more aviation magazines. Another highlight of that summer was when Roy Becket drove me down to the hobbyshop, same one where I purchased the magazine, and I purchased my first flying model airplane: a Jetco Thermic Dart, a balsa hand-launch glider that had to be assembled with sandpaper, a razor blade for a sharp knife, and real glue. I also built more plastic models during the trip.
. . . . . During that last visit, we found out Leavenworth had an airport at Fort Leavenwortth, and we drove out on an overcast day that seemed to be hushed quiet. On the way we drove by the big military prison with high walls topped with barbed wire and guard towers, a somber place. We reached the airport just in time to see a C-47 taking off in our direction. I’ll never forget the sound of the engines at takeoff power, the silhouette of the transport against the gray clouds, landing gear still down, climbing slowly toward the low cloud base. Outside on the ground, it seemed a lonely tableau in the gray world. Gray days were few at that time in my young life. I would have my share, many years hence.

Coming next time: Fourth Grade

live long . . . . . and proper.

from the Sunday, December 13, 1942 Illinois State Journal and Register, Springfield, Illinois

A Christmas Prayer

Peace on earth
And understanding . . .
Speed the day, Oh Lord.
Banish hate and cruelty,
Grant that we may learn of Thee.
Love . . . pity . . . charity,
We pray that soon, soon there may be
An end to war,
An end to war.

– HATTIE A. CASTEEL

If you’ve not read the other two poems from December 1942, understand they appeared on very tattered piece of newsprint that had been used as padding between new linoleum and the wood floor base when a kitchen in a Springfield home (address unknown, owner unknown) in December 1942. The newspapers were donated to Illinois Times and given to me from there when I visited more than a year ago to pick up a pay check, an all-too-rare occasion. A few weeks ago, I began clipping out parts of the newspapers which were not too fragile and dark from aging and staining to read. The three poems were printed in a column entitled “In Lyric Mood, a Presentation of Springfield Versifiers Guild.”

Who knows what happened to the authors of these poems? We know Ralph Schroeder had known Vachel Lindsay, and late in his life, donated a picture of the Lindsay house to the Sangamon Valley Collection. I know nothing of Carolyn Miller Burris and Hattie A. Casteel. What can YOU tell me about them?

Consider the chances that the three poets would be remembered in the blog of a writer who would not be born for another five years after they were printed. Consider how the three poems are as relevant to TODAY as they were December 13, 1942. And remember well for whom the bell tolls.

It tolls for our nation.

Live long . . . . and proper.

A few weeks ago, after posting a poem entitled “Focused Frontally” here at Honey & Quinine,  a friend recommended I submit it — with a few improvements he did not specify and I did not ask him to describe (I should have) — to The New Yorker. I’ve been a reader of that fine publication for 20 years, picking up the discards at the local library when I could find them for 50 cents a piece and given probably hundreds over the years by generous friends.  Two years ago, I began subscribing to it, and I just renewed for year three. The suggestion to submit the poem to TNY was about as nice a compliment to my poetry as I’ve received, so I vowed to revise and submit.

Like Walt Whitman, I consider a poem I write is never “done.”  I will always examine it before sharing it again to see if there are things I missed earlier: a phrase with a worm in it better exorcised before sharing again. an inappropriate semi-colon, a missed question mark, a tiko error.  I examined the poem again, sniffing, metaphorically, for poetic dissonance; revised the poem. I also priinted a slightly revised incarnation of my poem “From a Front Window Table” which I wrote about Capitol Caffe downtown and printed in my first book of poetry, self-published Minstrel’s Ramble: to Live and Die in Springfield, Illinois and available from the author or Prairie Archives on the south side of the square in lyrical downtown Springfield. I thought two poems sharing the same theme might improve the chances for at least one getting ink in the big city weekly. In my cover letter, I didn’t mention my love for The New Yorker or that I was a subscriber because that’s really irrelevant to my interest in having a poem accepted. I didn’t want to appear to be trying too hard, so I didn’t  mention my invalid aunt in Scarsdale who hopes my poems would be accepted becaise I had promised her that the entire payment from TNY would be used to help pay for that operation to remove the unsightly goiter from her neck, the entire family has been saving up for since 2003. Even if it wasn’t true, which it wasn’t, that too was irrelevant to the issue of whether or not either poem was fit for publication in the best weekly magazine in the whole wide world.

I found nothing about submitting manuscripts in my rushed perusal of the latest issue, but I did find it at the web site for the best weekly magazine in the whole wide world.  I also found they did not seek unsolicited poetry submissions. No matter, any poet worthy of the term would not let a matter of protocol get between blind faith and presumed destiny. In my cover letter, I didn’t even include mention of my poetry web sites.  I also didn’t include return postage.

The return of my poems was accompanied by a form note smaller than half a sheet of 8.5 x 11 paper, but still with TNY logo and address at the top, which said

“We regret that we are unable
to use the enclosed material.
Thank you for giving us the
opportunity to consider it.

“The Editors

“(A self-addressed stamped envelope
should accompany all submissions.)”

An anonymous (to me) hand, wielding a fine point ballpoint pen with black ink had encircled the postscript.

I wonder if you wondered what I wondered when reading the circled PS: Shouldn’t there be a comma between “self-addresed” and “stamped?”

I was delighted they had taken the time and expense to send the poems back despite my brainlessness in not including a SASE. The courtesy is de regeur to active freelancers, and doing so should have been second-nature to me; can’t explain why it wasn’t.  If I had, however, I would not have been blessed with something most intelligent and considerate poets will never possess: an envelope with The New Yorker return address in the upper left corner with my name and address meticulously printed front and center. That’s a keeper too, probably for the back of the frame.

When I looked at the poem returned to me, I discovered a GLARING inconsistency in that submitted revision that I revised, along with a few other words and phrases in the poem shared below . . . .

Focused Frontally
by Job Conger

The bookstore coffeeshop
is a stadium
and a playing field
for teams of twos and threes
and our table of six,
watching the unfolding
of the explicit rationale
of those who have decided
to be where they are.

Everyone’s focused on books except
the chatty 22-year-old
at the next table
with a cell ph0ne,
tempering his voice
like a library supervisor
talking to a clerk
at the checkout desk
when patrons are watching.

The polite decorum prevails:
fog over a harbor for
beverage imbibers and
con ver sa tiona lists.
Table tennis
lobs of words
extend the volleys
forward-focused explorations
of truths on pages,
coffee and hot chocolate
topped with sweet whipped cream.

Live long . . . . . and proper.

I Am Dancing on Marbles

I returned to the asylum today for the first time in about a week. It’s been like this since November and I had to take some time off for journalistic commitments. Weeks where I had two days to spare for the showroom, I was told not to come in for the rest of the week. It all started about the time I told Owner that I’d be working half days until he paid me $1,000 of the more than three he owes me. He just doesn’t want me to run up more dollars owed, and I’m fine with that — until I come to DEPEND on that schedule; build my journalism plans around it, and he abruptly renegs on his former plan. The showroom will naturally rot, left unattended, back to Illinois prairie unless someone cares ehough to at least vacuum the floor. NEXT week I will have to take mroe time off from the showroom so I can concentrate again on journalism assignments. IF I want to continue as a journalist doing what I feel it is my destiny to do, I will have to regard Owner with the same callous disregard and incivility with which he regards me. His integrity is a myth.

I  used to wonder why some brainless bi-poedal apes walk around with their zippers open and their genitalia hanging out of their open zippers. At an earlier time I was charitable about this. I concluded it was because no one had taught them that proper bi-poedals zip up their pants because it’s the civil thing to do, and those who embarrass ape-manity with their primitive crudeness have simply never been told how to live right. I believe now that I was naiive. I believe that Owner was taught how to do it right, but sometimes a man comes along who would rather fart into the face of propriety — As Martin Luther claimed he did to the Devil when he posted his 95 Theses many years ago. Owner would rather bend over and spread his cheeks for the many he holds in absolutely no regard to see and if we don’t like it — my being a case in point — we can get all perturbed and walk away from him, and he keeps the $3K he owes me and since it’s all unofficial anyway, and I am truly complicit in the criminality of it all, I will burn if he burns. This buys my silence from my mouth.

Nothing at Rock City when I arrived at noon Thursday suggested visitation by civil, professional influence. The place was a mess. Notes I had left for his attention remained where I left them. The last thing I had done before leaving to be a journalist two weeks ago had been to dust off the counters and ledges. They had not been touched by the step-son who anchored the seat behind the computer in my absence. So today I dusted them again. The battle here is not me fighting with what needs to be done in the showroom. I will do that because I have my own integrity to maintain. To do less is to MAKE me less than the man I am. My battle is to show a blind, deaf and dumb owner that there is a better way to run his little rock shop. I’m failing miserably. My integrity is unaffected; my will to continue in this asylum is what wanes with every sentient second I occupy that showroom.
But I cannot write full time. The pay I received for two articles in the business monthly is an eighth of what I need to allow me to buy clothes and save for real estate taxes and pay my many creditors who have been more paient than they should have to be. And there’s no depending on freelancing. I had no assignments in November, and the reasons mean nothing when I am so near the edge of oblivion, but that is why I will never mention their name in print again. I will write for them and be nice, but I need more than pay they can refuse on a whim of circumstance with ZILCH regard for my ability as a writer — which is clearly less than I imagined and assumed it to be. This is why so many “freelancers” are bored housewives seeking fulfillment. If they don’t write a month, their husbands make up the difference. If I don’t write a month, I lose feaking weight.
At least my mind is occupied. The proofreading for the American Aviation Historical Society Journal was completed with great zeal and swiftness. I LIKE those people! It’s easy to be good when good people are good to me. The Arcadia book editor shepherding the project I’m co-authoring responded in record time to my correspondence this morning. But WRITING should be my primary income these days.  Instead, the Owner would rather spread his odiferous cheeks to me than honor with his promises. As Vachel Lindsay wrote in  his poem “Factory Windows Are Always Broken,”  . . . . “Something is rotten, I think, in Denmark.”

I am frikking dancing on marbles.

Live long . . . . . and proper.

May 22, 1967

We’re reaching an important milestone with the Arcadia Publishing book Reisch Brewery by Tony White and Job Conger, slated for publication in 2010. The pictures Tony and I think would be best for the cover have been chosen and high definition scans have been sent to the regional editor based in the Chicago area. He and the admin at national will chose one of the three. Also on the way is back cover text describing the book. The purpose of this — as you would assume is to sell the book to people who will encounter it at bookstores and read the back cover. The words will be shared at Arcadia’s web site in a month or two. The authors, at this stage, are authorized to generate their own “buzz” about the book at blogs and their own web sites. Tony’s is at www.ReischBrewing.com and mine is at http://www.aeroknow.com/reischbeer.htm

The hard work begin following the content sketch which has been approved by the editor, based on the terrific Author’s Guidelines provided by Arcadia, Tonlly has his work cut out for him. Not only must he produce the story in so many chapters including a fact-filled forward, he must also write captions for almost two hundred pictures, just as I did when I published my Arcadia book Springfield Aviation last year. So why involve me as a co-author at all?

I’ve done it before, and though I hadn’t done it before, I DID it, l knew something about writing and what makes a good picture. I also had unlimited hours to devote to the task and I was my own best cheerleader for the project. I truly loved the process and dealing with all the people at Arcadia. Tony has a successful business in Virginia. He’s been away from his home town of Springfield for decades though he still visits a few times a year. I can do things here that he can’t do, and one of the first things on my list is to spend more time at Lincoln Library’s Sangamon Valley Collection AND the Illnois State Historical Library which is part of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library. We need to fine tune picture content. That’s where I come in. Nothing will be published without Tony’s approval. It would be easier to do all this in Arizona as our deadline for text and photos approaches because even going downtown in winter is no walk in the park, even when I drive. I recently came across a personal journal entry I had made the week before my book’s deadline, and I was more agitated than a load of clothes in “heavy wash cycle” at a laundromat. But the result made all the sweat disappear in the rinse cycle that followed. The reigns are a little looser this time around, though I expect significant spurring to the destination next year.

Even so I still want to find Springfield citizens, current and former, with pictures of Reisch Brewery and memories to share, to add to this book before we have to freeze resources selection in January. If you can help, please contact me by phone 544-6122 or e-mail – writer@eosinc.com — which is preferable to phone. Sometimes I’m so wrapped up in things here, I let the answering machine talk for me. If you can visit, I will scan your pictures while you watch, and hand them back to you. Easy, aye? I will be happy to interview you over the phone, or you can write memories down and e them to me.

Reisch Brewery was a part of Springfield for 117 years. When it was demolished to make way for Southern Illinois School of Medicine, a lot of history was — to paraphrase the Beatles — buried along with its name. It’s important to Tony White, Arcadia and me that people should often note and long remember (thank you Gettysburg Address) what they did at that place. Please help us tell the story.

Live long . . . . .  and proper.

The following poem was discovered in a pile of newspapers — spread out as padding between new linoleum and the floor foundation during reonovation in December 1942, which remained between linoleum and wood until 2007 when the homeowners decided to replace the old linoleum  — that were donated to Illinois Times just more than a year ago and subsequently to contributing writer and historian Job Conger who preserved articles, advertising and poems he considered important. The poem, like the one which appeared here at Honey & Quinine last week and the poem that will appear Sunday, 67 years to the day after it was first published in the December 13 Sunday edition Illinois State Journal and Register were printed on page 5 of that edition.

The piece of newsprint cut from that page included an article immediately to the right of the poems entitled Hog Market is Higher For Week plus the following headlines: White Hall Youths Register for Service, Blame Tax Selling for Mixed Trends, Wheat is Steady; Other Grains Off. New York Stocks listed included the following with Previous Close and Today’s. Allis Chalmers $25 / $25; American Telephone & Telegraph $129 1/2 / $129 7/8; Boeing $14 7/8 / $15Caterpillar Tractor $37 5/8 / $37 3/4; Chrysler Corp. $66 / $66 1/4; General Motors $42 5/8 / $43; Pan American Airways $23 7/8 / $23 3.4; Penny $77/14 / $78 1/2; Sears Roebuck $60 1/2 / $60 5/8 and Studebaker Corp. $5 1/4 / $5 3/8.

Here is the second poem published in the column entitled
In a Lyric Mood,
A Presentation of Springfield Versefiers Guild

The Gift

To few are given a golden crown,
And few are of royal birth
But who can judge save God alone
The extent of a person’s worth?

To few who are given honor and wealth
Glory, power or fame
But the greatest gift was given
To rich and poor the same

To a lowly manger cradle
The precious Christ-child came,
Through him the life eternal
If we but call his name.

Wonder of wonders that at Christmas
God gave his only son,
That through very humble people
His wondrous work is done.

– CAROLYN MILLER BURRIS

What became of the Springfield Versifiers Guild? I don’t know. Do you.think Springfield should have a group like them, with a more modern name indicating a focus on poetry and dedicated to writing poetry?  If you do, let’s meet. E-mail to writer@eosinc.com We will make it so.

Live long . . . . . . and proper.


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