Nutty Times; a Recap

There was considerable surprise and exhultation when I awakened on September 5th of the year 2011, my birthday,  something I had not expected to do when I was 25. During the first half of the month, I rode the high: purchased new sheets and pillowcases for the first time since about 1991 because the fitted corners were ripping apart and I needed a boost, a reason not to curl up in the living room easy chair as I’ve done more this year than any since 1977.
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I purchased a second cell phone which — after consulting with a Radio Shack associate — made me happier than the first, a Virgin Mobil which was like a launch control array for sending rockets to the moon from Cape Canaveral.  I thought the AT&T one would work better than my first, and at first it did, but it didn’t have the VOLUME I need in the ear piece, and every time I made a phone call, I felt like a five-year-old sweating his way through an itchy haircut. I gave it to a friend at work. So I’m still bummed and without a cell phone. If I can find one with more volume, I’ll buy it. Meanwhile I haven’t even looked at the AT&T device for more than a month.
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And then the TV broke. At first I lost all signal coming in through the digital adapter, and a week later I lost PBS which came through the air without the adapter, the way all TV should come to viewers. So every night I read and listen to Jazz with Bob Parlocha on the local WUIS FM station. Why? Because I can’t receive WILL from Champaign-Urbana on my home radio. I DO enjoy
Parlocha’s Mainstream Jazz where most of the Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonius tunes sound like they were arranged for high school bands. It’s good company though.
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AeroKnow Museum continues as a solo “performance.” I am making real progress but still have not connected with a volunteer to help in the downstairs office while I make REAL progress upstairs. If kind words were groceries, I’d be dining on rib-eyes and cauliflower with cheese sauce every night with apple pie and Port for desert.
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My friend Dale Jensen has posted videos of my reciting Vachel Lindsay poems onto YouTube. He has a camcorder and know-how. I have neither. Search on YouTube for Job Conger and let me know what you think.
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It hasn’t helped at all that my friend Dennis Camp died October 3. I took an Illinois Poets class when I was attending Sangamon State University; later got to know him as a Vachel Lindsay scholar without equal. I read about his death October 5 when the State Journal-Register published a two-sentence obituary and could not believe my eyes. Later, at a gallery reception I learned how he died from a friend, closer to the truth than I,  info not yet public, though I’m sure it will be sometime.
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On a positive note, I finished and published my new book about my trip to Ohio to read Vachel Lindsay’s poem “In Praise of Johnny Appleseed, Part I, Over the Appalachian Barricade” at the rededication of the Johnny Appleseed Museum in Urbana, Ohio and again at grave site in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. Those reading this blog in the nether regions of the world should know “Johnny Appleseed” was the nickname of John Chapman.
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On October 22, I will recite the poem I read last March in Ohio and offer my book — a chap book really — for sale. It’s complete with color pictures from Springfield, Illinois, Urbana, Ohio and Ft. Wayne, Indiana and the complete three-part Lindsay poem for $5 each starting October 22 after my presentation.
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I’m still working at least four days a week though I am still waiting for permission to deposit checks for the last two pay periods. It is a freaking CIRCUS at my “employer!”
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But the my friend from Burgundy, “Carlo Rossi,” and my friend “Peter Pan” — I call him “Chunky” — are providing all the solace and comfort one can ask from a bottle and a jar, and I’d be an ungrateful lucky mother’s son not to appreciate their help.
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These are nutty times, but they will do.
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Live long . . . . .and proper.