new poem/song lyric – So It Seems

So It Seems
by Job Conger

I’ve had me some sweethearts who said they thought me wise,
Traded love for some bountiful baskets of lies.
It was all so mercantile, I recall with a sigh.
It seems I was born to be a single guy.

Hysterical romances all ended in a huff.
I haven’t loved often or even enough.
But I’m done with this fool’s game of wondering why.
It seems I was born to be a single guy.

(refrain)
There were no greater thrills, passions more fine
Than lusty tussles, kisses sweeter than wine.
But those were yesterday’s joys. Now I contemplate
Life chasing different dreams as master of my fate.

Together-forever hopes, duets in the sun.
I had my chances and I blew every one.
Panning for gold in the waste of woe — you know it’s folly to try.
It seems I was born to be a single guy.

No more quilt and antique shopping, there’s more room to stretch in bed.
I don’t have to pretend to like her friends; I just have to pretend to like my friends instead.
I’ve not vacuumed my living room since last Fourth of July.
It seems I was born to be a single guy.
It seems I was born to be a single guy.

=============================================
I wrote this song several years ago, knew I wanted to sing it as one of four pieces I intended to share at a local open mic night. I could NOT find a copy at home, and I could not access my office computer until the next day, so over the course of the day at my employer, I gradually recovered an essential five lines from searching the long-term memory in my brain. I was amazed that I could do it. Then I printed the song at work to take with me to the open mic and practiced the song, with my guitar at work (it’s okay; it was a slow day) but I didn’t practice it enough. The performance of this song was the worst I’ve done in public, and that’s saying something! It’s not easy for me to sing this song — nobody wants to make himself look like a looser — , but I am somehow compelled to share it as I get older. It’s a legitimate part of the man I am. I DO plan to sing it again after I’ve practiced it a hellovalot. Thanks for sharing it here.

Live long . . . . . . and proper.

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Something for April

I could not let April end without posting one update, and it’s an update I would not have predicted when I posted the third of three in March. During that month, at my second post-operation visit with my surgeon, I had been given permission to remove the full-extension leg braces. I could keep them, make a sculpture out of them, burn them. They belong to me. This was a burst of sunshine to my outlook.

True, I had to continue with the bulky aluminum walker which was not much of a bother. In two weeks I was spending nearly all of my time carrying it — mostly to impress my physical therapists who wanted me to follow “doctor’s orders,” and a little bit to give an impression that I was experiencing significant discomfort when I was on my feet at my employer. Both efforts were charades, of course. I was still riding the disabled minibus service, Access Springfield, and starting in late March I begam entering and exiting on the steps after the entry door opened. I no longer needed the hydraulic lift that allowed me to stand, stabilized by my walker going up and coming down. On April 13, I took my last Access Springfield ride — home from the airport museum on a Saturday afternoon — and the next day I drove out to the airport in my pickup truck for the first time since January 12. THAT was another milestone in the recovery action! I’ve been driving ever since.

Since I began driving again, I’ve not bothered with the pretense of needing the walker. It’s all been going fine . . . until about April 2 when I began visiting the hospital for hour-long physical therapy workouts twice a week instead of the previous onceas, and things became real serious real fast. Just as I began to see “light at the end of the tunnel” — naiively imagining all the workouts would be over reasonably soon — as I religiously followed the physical therapists’ instructions for a series of excercises at home that took about 30 minutes every morning . . . they made the tunnel longer, adding some standing excercises involving some that involved simple but perilous (to me) squats to strengthen my upper quad area, stretching exercises for the hamstrings and balancing excercises because good balance is mandatory for maximum safety. As a result — and this is what I would not have predicted a month ago — I have begun to lose the sense of pride I had during the early recovery days when I was seeing progress almost every day, gaining confidence.

I’m still a 65-year-old fellow with no love life, fair social life, an employer I allow to drive me absolutely nuts and no real prospects for imporoving either. Also, I cannot BUY help at the airport museum. It’s hard to be creative when my head and heart are mired in disappointment. I’ve not written a new poem since leaving the hospital; haven’t blogged since May 23. The physical therapy and daily regimen at home are creating more physical distress by the hour than in the early days. Why the hell bother with all this theraphy?

At the end of today’s physical therapy session, my sour outlook was obvious. Therapist Alex (a woman) offered to reduce the twice-weekly sessions to one a week again, and I declined. At least I will do the exrcises at the hospital. At home, I’ve become less inclined to do ALL the recommended workouts.

I’m told that on my next visit to my surgeon, he will likely discontinue my sessions at the hospital and advise me to keep excercising and walking a lot. I will miss the visits with Alex and Heather there. I’m missing more than engaging. Missing what is not mine and engaging the surprisingly social life that is . . . all the while wishing I didn’t have so many things on my calendar. They’re on my calendar for a reason: I LIKE to be with people who like me.

So I will continue with this for awhile, try to be more conscientious, and will share a new poem come May.

Live long . . . . . . and proper.

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newly posted poem — Approaching 65

Reflections of a Single Male Approaching 65
by Job Conger
8:40 pm Monday, July 16, 2012
extensively revised March 24, 2013

Some things fade from memory:
the name of the grandfather
you met on his farm in Cochran, Georgia
when you were five,
The best friends of your mom and dad
who had more than you do –
their “social associates” –
by definition you’re ahead on that score.
You remember your sister’s prom night,
all the fuss she and mom made over the prom dress,
with lots and lots of petticoats.
She was the queen of the senior prom that year
Nineteen hundred and fifty-four or thereabouts.
You would turn seven three months later.

As you look back over the years,
grateful for every one, I might add,
trying to remember what you forgot —,
and for what positive benefit you cannot imagine —
you are glad for what you can’t recall:
the names of those who declined your invitations to dance
at the Ben Franklin Junior High School sock hops,
and that’s okay because you danced with those who said “yes”
almost as much as you wanted to dance.

Also long forgot the names of those
who you dated once or twice
and neither celebrated nor suffered after that

And as you remember mostly
all the cataclysmic epiphanies,
revealed in burning bushes, from trying and failing.
you chew your cud of solitary solace. Your heart remains true as you continue your quest
for Nirvana or Dulcinea or Snow White and, God bless her,
Ellen H, the woman who came closest
to your pre-pubescent, adolescent and post teen and post 30s and post 40s and post 50s and post 60 aspirations . . .
swallowing echoes, stark in truth, inexorably evolved from moonlight masquerades and made plain to see,
illumined by the burning wisdom of the sun.
The lies of moonlit truths reflected
and savored in soft shadows.

That siren song patina, the reason to live until tomorrow,
melodious hopes penned by writers of fairy tales
and you harmonized with them, a willing accessory to the
cosmic delusion: love and living happily ever after.

Underneath the patina, what you wanted to be close to
to touch and kiss and devote your life to:
the heaven-on-earth of a smile
and a few wet inches.

================

As I engage challenges I did not imagine less than a year ago, I’ve decided that instead of “wearing purple,” I’m going to be more of who I am. Perhaps doing this will inspire you, dear readers, to do the same.

Live long . . . . . . and proper.

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folksong lyric — Take Two

Take Two
by Job Conger

(introduction)
For months President Bush fed us lies
Served by pious, righteous cronies sleek and wise.
Some of us didn’t care to dine on their siren soup du fear
.Now digestion time is over, and the truth is odiferously clear . . . .

He’ll sing and dance like few Yale frat brats can
When W’s feces of lies hit the fan.
Though he sold us a war, second guessing is a drag.
It’s amazing what some folks take home when you wrap it in a flag.

He has stained our proud Stars and Stripes true
With new colors of brown, black and blue.
Those who saw through his blow,
We ain’t real Americans no mo
As W’s feces of lies hit the fan.

Front yard PATRIOT signs are the rage
Like armband fashions of an earlier age.
The feared weapons are as real as “the emperor’s new clothes.”
The facts should be clear to all who breathe through their nose.

The Congress feasted on pork barrel pie.
The “sounds of silence” was their battle cry.
They stayed cool and well-fed
While soldiers brave died and bled
And W’s feces of lies hit the fan.

Now he tells us “Saddam had to go!”
“Nobody ever really liked that guy, you know.”
Though the U.N. tried hard, they could not find a trace,
So the “compassionate conservative” threw war in their face.

So, as we hold noses tightly and pray,
It’s time to send CHIEF INSPECTOR O.J.
For gasless, germless blue skies
Can’t match a PRO’s alibis
As W’s feces of lies hit the fan. 

—– written June 26, 2003
================

The song was my “mantra” during W’s ‘rain of you know what,” but even songs, like wars, don’t seem to move folks the way they used to. I will play/sing Page Two in public for the first time in years at Springfield Poets and Writers Group’s Open Mike Night, March 20 at Robbie’s Restaurant on Adams Street — Springfield’s South Side of the Square along with my songs “Watching the Tide Go Out” and the song I wrote about my early days of treatment for my separated kneecap repair at Memorial Medical Center. I’ll also recite a favorite Vachel Lindsay poem as always. There will be talent and awesomeness a plenty, so please attend if you can. The fun begins at 6 pm. I hope to see you there.

live long . . . . . and proper.

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Two Months Since the Knife

Following the January 17 surgery required to re-attach my upper quad tendons to my kneecaps,   I enjoyed more activity with more friendly, educated and lucid people than I’d experienced in my life. Along with visits from several friends and acquaintances, some of whom I’ve not seen since being discharged January 27, the medical and  housekeeping personnel at Memorial Medical Center  (MMC) were absolutely GOLD in their interfacing with me. I was blessed with several friends who rearranged my living room to that it would be my primary living space — close to the kitchen and front door with my bed relocated so I could watch TV from bed or chair, work at a nearby table, etc. Not knowing how long  it would be before  I could return to work at my employer, these friends and a few more had  packed my refrigerator and cupboards with an amazing array of food. By the evening of the 27th, there was more food in the house than there had been in any previous MONTH. (I am a man of modest means,) Another friend arranged to have a hot meal brought to the house by volunteer cooks/deliverers who visited every three or four days and almost always called before delivering to be sure their timing was good. Some friends volunteered/delivered food more than once: home-made chili, spaghetti sauce and more. For most of a month, it was a minor Eden (minus the Eve, dang it, but I never went naked for an entire day). Every other day for about a month I was visited by Visiting physical and occupational therapists from MMC who changed my dressings, took blood pressure, respiration and pulse. In late February, the staples, which had held me “together” along the incisions (59 on the right leg, 64 on the left) were removed by a nurse who came to my home at my surgeon’s direction. I was amazed by how clean everything looked.

The first “milestone” during what has evolved into a rather LOOOOOOOOOOONG recovery came with my first ride to my new “physician of record” at the county health clinic where we “charity” patients go. It was my first ride on Springfield’s minibus transportation service for disabled  people. I can go anywhere in town for $2.50 per ride to destination. That amounts to $5 per “there and back” round trip, but it is a wonderful arrangement; much more affordable than cabs.  Since that visit, I have returned to work part-time, typically five or six hours a day and 5 days a week. I’ve also returned to my AeroKnow Museum at the airport where I volunteer two or three morning every week (7:30 to 11 am) before riding another Access minibus to work and then home. Since Access does not operate on Sundays, it has been a real challenge to recruit friends who will drive me out at say 8:30 or 9 and come back to take me home about 5 or so. One friend has come through for me every week since I started Sundays at  the museum in late February, and I HOPE I can find another friend or two to share the burden. In the meantime, I am gradually spending more time working on museum tasks at home.  My next door neighbor has been a Godsend, taking me to the barber, grocer, office supply store and more. Again I WISH I knew more than one person, because sometimes my needs and the person’s schedule do not coincide. In the meantime, I’m happy to be blessed by the help at hand.

The one unexpected lesson of this process has been my outlook on life as influenced (with my permission) by my employer. I KNOW I’m lucky to be working at all and that’s why I’m still working there, but the deletable expletive BEFORE my fall is the same deletable expletive AFTER my fall only now I experience it with full-extension leg braces. Every day I work, the joy of life, drains from me like air from a tire going flat. Some evenings I wait an hour for the arrival of the Access minibus after we close, so since I’m the one who “locks up the store” I sit in a dark showroom and listen to the nearby grandfather clock chime every 15 minutes watching the sun go down and drag myself through my front door at 6:40 or so, This routine has nearly drained the creative incentive from me. I’ve not written a poem longer than four lines since I was sleeping at the hospital. This is the first Honey & Quinine I’ve posted in too darn long! I must rise above all this, and in these words we see the first step. I’ve decided my story is a story that should be shared with friends and innocent strangers. I am alive . . . . still.

I write, therefore I am!

Live long . . . . and proper.

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new poem/song lyric: Here’s to the Spirit

Here’s to the Spirit
by Job Conger
written 5:30 pm, December 21, 2005

(chorus)
Here’s to the spirit of hope in our hearts –
The spirit, the ghost or the flame –
That shows you the world with the gift of a smile,
No matter the credo or name.
In the darkest of winter a warm breath to brighten
Horizons of those who are dear.
Yes, here’s to the spirit that moves us to love
And here’s to a happy new year.

Life is a voyage through tumbling tides
In the quest for safe harbor and land
As we seek sweet surcease from our sorrows and pain,
When the sailing’s not smooth as we planned.
Blame your dad, blame the devil, blame a deck of bad cards,
But they won’t wreck your ship on the shore.
When you stand at the helm, show the world that you care,
And you’ll reach where you’re going and more.

(chorus)

The world will be better from what burns inside,
Not from whining and running away
To a bottle or needle or palavering cult.
What you need, you should be. Show the way.
Let the glow of true passionate dreams light the world,
And the lasting rewards they will sing
As the dawn of each new day to arise to our hopes,
And we’ll know life is worth everything.

Yes, here’s to the spirit of hope in our hearts –
The spirit, the ghost or the flame –
That shows us the sun with the gift of a smile,
No matter the credo or name.
In the darkness of winter, a warm breath to brighten
Horizons of all we hold dear.
Yes, here’s to the spirit that leads us to love
And here’s to a happy new year.
Yes, here’s to the spirit that leads us to love . . . .
And here’s to a happy new year!

===============================
When I have an idea for a poem or a song, it’s as good as written. The challenge is to allow myself to make the time to be open, to let the inspiration come to me as it did December 21, 2005.  For several years, odds were pretty good that if I wrote a poem or song at ALL, it would be written toward the end of the year. I knew I wanted to write an exhortation that wasn’t “preachy.” Instead of saying “YOU SHOULD FEEL THIS” the approach was to TOAST The SENTIMENT in the chorus. Instead of “preaching” in the chorus, I wanted to “exhort,” and I believe I did. Listeners/readers aren’t asked or directed to do anything in the chorus. I’m simply toasting the day. I wanted something akin to an Irish sound to the melody, and that was easy. As the poem’s chorus lyric, the major element which I wanted to repeat, came together the melody came before I had written the first three lines. The verse varies only it words. It has the same melody as the chorus. I will record the song on Sound Cloud, and send it as a document to anyone who commends about the song and asks for the recording. Best wishes to you for a happy new year.

Live long . . . . . . and proper.

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Return to Chi’ (or) I Didn’t Even Change Shorts, part 2

Visiting the Windy City the second time by Amtrak is a lot easier the second time than the first.  I knew that wherever I exited the station at street level, if I turned right or left and kept the station on only my right or left side, walking around the block, eventually I’d see the familiar CVS Pharmacy across the street at one of four corners I knew I would encounter,  and that was the corner where I would wait for Peter. The night before, I had explained in a brief phone call that I had shaved off my mustache, but I had kept the rest of the manicured full beard.  It was conceivable that without that advisory, he would have driven by that guy with the brown leather jacket that looked like the one I wore last year when I visited . . . and the same guitar . . . and the same dress slacks . . . and not stopped because I was missing a vital element above my upper lip. Happily for MOI, he recognized me. The time was about 10:40. The rain was light.

One of the first subject to come up after stowing the luggage and instrument in the trunk was lunch.  Peter assumed I had eaten on the train. He wasn’t hungry and he didn’t expect to be hungry for a while. It was 10:40 in the morning and I hadn’t touched food since 7 last night. I wasn’t famished-hungry, but my body was telling me it was time for more. Even so,  I can miss a few meals, and not have to buy new pants. Besides, I had not come for the cuisine, I had come to see the city. Soon we were barreling down a major avenue in the direction of a silent auction fundraiser at a visual arts gallery/studio which had been a beautiful large home in ages past in a healthy-looking neighborhood in the general vicinity of University of Chicago.  We arrived about 11:10 when they were taping yellow silent auction forms to a wonderful variety of creations already placed. More was on the way. Peter knew Laura, the director of the event, had taken a course at this house. The arts organization that had rented it for years had lost their lease, and the auction would raise funds to help the move to a new location if they could find a new location. I felt I was visiting a funeral home before the “guest of honor” was wheeled in and the chairs had been arranged. The event  — the silent auction — would begin at 1 pm, but we were welcome to look around, even go upstairs. There was a lot to see: within and from within. Former fireplaces were focal points in every room on the ground floor. I would have loved to have seen the large portrait that must have hung above the piano room pictured here. What was his/her name? Occupation? What had happened to the painting? It’s obvious in the picture that one honkin’-big painting had presided over that room possibly in the early 40s but not likely much later.

We strolled past the piano room into the room where the wine would be shared. Everything was very much “in process.” I believe the hanging fabric was an artistic creation, but I didn’t get close enough to tell for sure.
I paused to take this picture before we drifted up the stairway to the second floor . . .
  In addition to the gift shop at that level were rooms which had been studios, maybe living quarters for artists. I could imagine being inspired by the natural light  and perhaps sitting for a portrait in the room pictured left.
The view from a window in the “gift shop” revealed a Unitarian church just down the street we would soon  walk by it on the way to building that might have served as home to King Arthur.

On the way back to the stairs, I noticed the Soft Room with the door slightly opened. It was a fascinating concept. The “no shoes” warning was an excellent touch. If we had visited on a sunny morning with a little more time, I would have taken off my shoes and gone inside.

Peter told me about the place we were walking to, but I didn’t have my digital tape recorder, and I wasn’t taking notes.  It was much more than a meeting hall on the University of Chicago campus. The few pictures I took inside will say only what they can say . . .

This was the central gathering  area. Forward here took us to a lecture hall if I remember right. To the right was a hall to other rooms and to the left was a stairway going up.

View from a landing halfway up to the second floor shows a tastefully garlanded hand railing. I imagined this space in the 30s before plastic event registration tables and folding chairs contributed a touch of garage sale ambiance to the otherwise Harvard-esque tableau. It was time to go.

  The Smart Museum of Art, also on campus was next.  It was the highlight of the day.  I could have spent two hours here solo with a camera, pen and paper for taking notes.  The incredibly spacious lobby — big as Texas — featured a coffee shop with baked snacks, table and chairs. I seldom eat when I can avoid eating, so I had coffee, and it was excellent.

This is the view of the lobby. A welcoming greeter is behind the desk on the right, refreshments behind him and tales and chairs in the center area. The large mural is a black & white composite photograph from Czechoslovakia (if I recall correctly)  created on a  fabric hanging that came together from four separate pieces, each about as big as Vermont. The photo above shows natural color photograph.  The mural is very interesting; lots going on  For the fun of it I created a colorless rendition from my original.

This is the ‘grey scale edition.

By fully saturating the picture with my computer’s photo software, I “hyper-colorised it.

I gave the same treatment to a closeup of one of my favorite parts of the wonderful mural.                                                                   The following photos are shared for the most part with no information about the art. I was floored, knocked out, by the variety and quality of what was displayed . . .

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Here, my friend and generous host Peter reads about the table and chairs designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.   It was approaching 2:15: time for lunch.

Here’s the view of the opposite side of the enclosed yard as we departed for the excellent walk back to the car. There were people on the sidewalks walking places. No one got in the way. Faces were focused forward . . .                                                                                                  

       a closer view

Peter recommended a place called Steak & Egger. I was in no mood for breakfast, but I was game for anything but a filet of sole with the name Floursheim embossed into it.

Located in a former very high traffic location during the industrial age, the territory around was still busy after becoming home to many newcomers of Mexican and Spanish origin. Even so, the menu was in English. It reminded me of a Steak & Shake with a long counter overlooking the major part of the cooking area and surrounded by a wide “U” of tables and chairs. There was a lot of convivial patter and chatter, smiles everywhere and surprisingly busy for mid-afternoon. I was absolutely delighted with Peter’s taste in restaurants! After a delicious fried chicken special with mashed potatoes, string beans and a nice dinner salad. The owner kindly wrapped the thigh and breast I had not eaten in aluminum foil. I intended to savor the leftover for dinner  after I returned to Springfield. I honestly and truly recommend Steak & Egger to all friends and amigos y amigas visiting Chicago with time to find it. Peter took my picture outside before we headed for his condo about 4:15. You see here a satisfied man!
After unpacking at Peter’s and Byung’s I sat in on some Ph.D candidate students’ informal gathering with Professor Byung whom they addressed by her unmarried last name — Professor Soo, I believe. They were all deep into paperwork and final projects. most planning  to graduate next year.  The field was school administration. The friendly repartee between professor and students was as between colleagues focused on great mutual affection and respect and shared goals. After the conference, the students departed and friends began arriving for the Christmas party where I had been invited to play and sing.

It was a most terrific Christmas party!

Live long . . . . . and proper.

Next time on “Return to Chi’ (or) I Didn’t Even Change Shorts” our hero and his exceedingly kind host Peter visit Lincoln Park, the Chicago History Museum and during the long day’s journey into night, I listen to a marriage come apart as my seat mate argues with his wife about their coming separation on his cell phone. Stay tuned.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

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Syncopated Sunshine

Since January, I have stopped being a poet so that I could pour my heart and soul into a major project at AeroKnow Museum. Most readers will laugh and then sigh as I explain the obsession has been the consolidation of less-than-whole page (8.5 x 11 inch) scraps of information into single-page amalgams of information. I finished the project last Thursday.

Last January I started pulling scraps from every file in the museum’s Research Room: — 15 file cabinets — filling 12 (case-of-reams-of-office-copy-paper-size) boxes with them, and then setting them aside in the Intake Room to be further processed through two of the three requisite tasks leading to the return of the information removed back to the Research Room. In the meantime, too much of the rest of my life as ceased to exist.

The task was time-consuming to be sure, but it was made easier, thanks to my almost completely walking away from good people in this community whom I have known and appreciated for years. Most of this walking away has occurred since last August when I  started coming to grips with the angst of my frail mortality as I approached my 65th birthday. I’ve attended far fewer poetry and visual arts events than I attended before launching AeroKnow Museum at the airport.

I have completely walked away from Vachel Lindsay Home State Historic Site. For almost three years, I had been inviting the site director — who, through her occupation connection to history might have (logically) enjoyed seeing it — to visit AeroKnow MUSEUM. Until August I invited her every time I attended an event at the Lindsay landmark. Until November, I had renewed my membership in the Vachel Lindsay Association and attended the annual meetings. Not any more. I have not walked away from my appreciation of Vachel Lindsay and his poetry. I will continue sharing my Vachel Lindsay program and reciting his poems for anyone who will have me. My profound disappointment with the  “Lindsay elite” would be harder if my treasured Lindsay scholar and friend Dennis had not taken his own life about a year ago as Vachel’s birthday approached. The positive outcome of all this is that I better understand what I believe Vachel was experiencing before he took his own life in early December 1931. Springfield killed the poet pretty deliberately and well. The people of my own hometown Springfield (“this, the city of my discontent” — Vachel Lindsay from his poem “Springfield Magical”) killed my friend Dennis pretty well. I will not allow myself the incapacity to live, an incapacity I have felt looming in their company. They will not kill me.

The last poem I wrote this year was inspired by a painting displayed at a gallery in October. I was delighted to have had the opportunity to write the poem “We Wander” and delighted to share it with an attentive audience, excellent people who delighted in hearing it — and other fine poems from poets inspired by other fine paintings. I WANT to be writing more poetry. People who read it, like it. So why the HELL have I not thrown myself into the pursuit of becoming the next Rod McKuen or Henry Gibson? Because I reap more direct reward from aviation and the few friends I have come to know from that on a daily basis than I have reaped from the SEVERAL (but not many) friends I have come to know, since about 1989 with my poetry and songwriting/performing. The  poetry connecting — now that I must work Saturdays for an employer whose last paycheck was given t me almost two months ago — comes once a month TOPS. Sometimes not even that. The aviation affirmation comes every day of my life.

Meanwhile, back at the airport, since last spring this year, at least two or three days a week, I arrive at the museum office between 5 (when the host business opens for the day) and 5:30 two or three times a week, and darn near every day but Sunday before 7. On Sunday, I sleep late and arrive by 9 without fail.  My consciousness is what I call “water seeking its own level.”

I am wrapped up in the web of what I call “syncopated sunshine” — a rhythm of life that is inconsistent and hard to swing to.

On days I shower, I roll out of bed at 4, and arrive at the museum at 5, sometimes a few minutes before, and eight of 10 times, the early arriver is already there at the occasional 4:55 and the building’s front door is unlocked. Other times, I am out of the sack at 4:30, teeth brushed, (no time for coffee) dressed and out to the museum by 5 or close to it.

In theory, I should be able to do this consistently by hitting the hay by 9, if not 8:30. I need no more sleep than six and a half hours’ worth. In reality, I am ALLOWING  the travails of my workplace to figuratively “tie one hand behind my back.”  I leave work at 5 — and go directly to the museum until 6:30 to avoid the rush hour traffic going home. I ALWAYS find something to work on. No big surprise there.  But, if I’ve had a really rotten day at work,  I go by to see if there is a Wall Street Journal I can have. The FBO that provides fuel and maintenance to local and transiting aircraft receives a State Journal-Register and three Wall Street Journals daily. Pilots and passengers departing the FBO after landing to refuel may take a WSJ to read about their airplanes in transit elsewhere. If there are any left when I arrive after work, the counter crew may approve me taking one or they may indicate a few more flights are scheduled for the evening, and all WSJs on hand need to stay until those flights have come and gone. THEN they will slide one under my office door.  WSJs are important to the museum because I read every issue I get and clip anything related to aviation so I can file it upstairs.

On a good night I’m home by 7, but if the day at work was better than typical, and my outlook is good, I will work at the museum until 8, sometimes until 9 and on really good days until 10. They close at 11 pm.

On a good night, I’m eating dinner by 7:15 and washing it down the hatch with cheap Burgundy. I am trying to drink more iced tea and less burgundy, but it’s not working out very well. Regardless, even with iced tea, I am exhausted from semi-combat at my employer. I am often asleep in my recliner by 7:40, and awaken most frequently around 11 when I turn off the lights and go bed, but even that isn’t easy. Late night radio before midnight totally stinks. Last night it was so bad, I listened to a “sports radio” station as my head hit the pillow, not because I’m a sports fan but because the only other two stations I can receive clearly in the bedroom are right-wing diatribe and financial advice (two separate radio stations). At least I’m not offended by sports radio.  Getting to sleep is easy. I don’t drink more wine when I wander in after the early evening “nap” because I’m already half asleep.

Getting back to sleep after AWAKENING at 2 am is the problem! It is pure, freaking purgatory. I DON’T want to get up and do something. What the hell is there to do in my house?  I have begun to work on AeroKnow tasks at home just to stay awake after dinner. Sometimes I delay dinner because I know I won’t go to sleep before I eat.  I REALLY want to confine museum work to the museum and my employer who doesn’t complain if he sees aviation material on my showroom desk because he knows my FIRST PRIORITY while I am there is MY EMPLOYER. That’s as it should be.  I am HAPPY to earn my pay  . . . whenever . . . he decides . . . . to pay me.

My home computer is an old laptop I purchased about two years ago with a small screen. I cannot work with the small screen, even with a full-size keyboard plugged into it. Sooooooo I am committing my resources to a new desktop computer for HOME this Christmas, but not before. In fact I will  go shopping for one AFTER Christmas because I expect prices to be lower then.

With the desktop computer at home I HOPE to sleep solidly for at least six consecutive  hours a night by not napping. If I’m tired after dinner with or without wine, I will to to the frikking bedroom after turning off the lights and the thermostat to 55. Then I will use the time from whenever the hell I do awaken to write poetry or songs or whatever, even AeroKnow Museum tasks.

The real hard part? Holding onto things until January. That will be the hard part.

Live long . . . . . and proper.

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new poem: On the Other Hand

On the Other Hand
by Job Conger

The down side
of living
through a time of travail
is that you
come to learn
how little
those you care about the most
notice
after you’ve gone away.

written 9:33 am, Sunday, November 11, 2012

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a new poem — We Wander — and the story behind it

I am not writing poems and songs as frequently as when I was younger, in part because I am spending so much time developing AeroKnow Museum, and in part because I seldom have a reason. There’s no woman in my life (usually the best reason), and there is no call upon me to engage the process. It’s not a matter of having no time. When I have a reason, I make the time. When Springfield Poets and Writers Group (SPW) announced an opportunity for poets inclined to be moved by visual, framed, watercolor paintings created by members of the Sangamon Watercolor Society, and to write a poem that we would read aloud at a gallery reception November 3, I made the time.

Photos of the paintings had been posted at a Facebook site. The implicit hope was that every one of the 10 or so artists who had agreed to paint new works for the project would inspire at least one poet. Poets were to share the painting’s name (or a short description if there was no name) with our poetry coordinator, the current president of SPW. I was happy to learn soon after submitting my choice, that it was available.

Once “the table was set,” that I had seen the painting (or in my case a photograph on which the painting would be based) there was no worry or guilt trip over the first three of four weeks we had to write the poem and put it into a frame we could buy anywhere. A week before the deadline, I was at work when I was hit by an epiphany of words and vision. The words were the first three-line stanza of five I would eventually write, and the visual was the line structure that would be consistent in length and meter throughout. I also had the “voice” which would be one of the two people in the painting. It would not be about “faces” because the painting would show the backs fo two heads facing the other direction in a toy “Jeep” moving toward a simple green horizon under a blue sky.

Saturday morning, poets delivered the framed poems to the gallery site on the 3rd floor at Hoogland Center at the same time the visual artists would be arriving. The gallery hosts would determine how things would be arranged, but we all knew our poems would hang either close below or beside the paintings which had . . . . a  . . . . .mused us!

The event began about 5:30. Event emcee Jan Sorenson was talking to a fellow when I approached and asked if the artist who had created “my” painting had arrived. She said he was the gentleman she was talking to as I approached, and she introduced me to Mike Delaney of Decatur, Illinois. We had a happy intro, and then it was time for some quick pictures where his painting and my poem were hung.

The event went very smoothly, unhurried, and for most of it, sans speeches that began to drone on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on . . . as though some secret patron was paying the speakers not by the minute, but by the hour. At events without microphones and AMPLIFIED speakers, these days — and sometimes even with them –  my hearing is darn near shot to blazes anyway. What I did hear was very educational in the main. The artists spoke first following Jan’s fine introductions of paintings and artists, and then the poets were introduced. We all talked about what we liked about the paintings that had moved us and how we created our poems.

poet Job Conger (left) and painter Mike Delaney (right)

When Jan introduced Mike, his presentation was exemplary: informative, entertaining, and he even remembered how to correctly pronounce my first name!

Mike Delaney

Before I talked about my poem, I took a picture of the audience,

the audience

explaining how they are as important to me as a poet as my poem might be during the few minutes so it would take for me to share it. I said I had correctly anticipated the kids were sisters in the early photo, the basis for the poem I would write, and in the painting. I was delighted with the painting and for the opportunity two write about it. Then I read the poem . . .

We Wander!
                                 by Job Conger

So this will be the way we go:
We go to anywhere I know.
I know because my eager heart has told me so!

My sister is my friend; it’s true.
It’s true that life is all so new,
so new, and there is oh so much for us to see and do!

We’ll take the road less traveled by.
By serendipity we shall fly.
Shall fly so sweetly, fleetly, as we wander far and nigh!

What will Fate choose for us years hence?
Years hence may temper young confidence.
Young confidence shuns grownups’ fussy diligence.

And we shall dream, wandering free,
free, clownish,  cavorting, seekers ’til we . . .
’til we turn ten or maybe, let’s say, seventy-three!

To everyone’s credit none of the poets and artists exited the presentation before it was over. Open microphone nights at other local venues sometimes include “poetry prima donna’s” and “poetry prima daniels” who attend, read their poems and leave early. Not so November 3.

Another poet reads her poem about the nearby painting.

The readings were followed by recognition of the creations of other SWS member painters who had won prize ribbons in a recent annual contest. The event concluded with a “happy trails
from the sympatico emcee, and many of us elevatored down to the Prairie Art Alliances gallery reception on first floor.

Poet Mark Flotow talks about his poem and the colorful abstract painting which inspired it.

One of my favorites at the PAA reception was this by Delinda Chapman.

This photo of purchase information for Delinda’s painting has been slightly color modified.

Mark MacDonald (right), host of the public television program “Illinois Stories” chats with friends at PAA’s reception.

It was an evening well spent. Kudos and thanks to all who attended and participated.

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