...the corner.

Bert came onto my stage in the shoe department of one of Moody Street's upscale department stores when I was an aspiring -ass hole. I had been selling 'shoes' out of the place for two years during high school days. Anyway, he looked like he just stepped out of the doll-house, perfect countenance.  He was in from the home office. One of their rising stars. I did not know it at that time, but Bert was looking for me; he needed to mentor the employees from my shoe department, meaning me. What an education! Bert would walk around the department store learning the names off those who worked in different departments. He took me along for the ride. I was just the guy from the shoe department; i had no power, valueless, but they started looking at me differently, like I was a somebody in the shoe department. Bert was grooming me for the Boston office. Pure, like a miracle. Emulating Bert was like being the "orgasm" of many dreams. For example, Bert set it up so that I would be the fill-in department store manager for all of the stores in Bert's sector. So when the regular shoe department manager went on their summer vacation, I would open and close their shoe department; this took me to all parts of the state, each week a new set of shoes to sell to a different segment of the states' population. I did the shoe department's inventory,  made adjustments and cleaned up the mis-shelved shoes. I was learning how to recognize the differences between the different sections of the state. This was how I learned to run a distribution. To prove my point, when drafted into the military, I was assigned to be the distributor for one of the distributions points in the Middle East, 1964/65. Bert filled me with promise; I'm so grateful. But! Not everyone saw Bert as I did. The old guy in the men's department of the department store believed that Bert was just too good to be a "guy." Therefore Bert was gay. Anyway, Bert took  me into the men's department; he was buying a sweater and wanted to know my take on it. We are talking top of the line; he wants my opinion; my feet are off the ground; I'm flouting. The old man gives me a wink. That was the first sweater I ever stole; because the old man is the first one out the door at closing; that's when I went into the men's department, picked up a sweater like the one Bert bought, put it in a bag and walked it into the shoe department, leaving it there over night. Now. Bert wore the sweater he bought each day he was there, as one might wear a smock while working. When Bert left, I put on my sweater; the one that I swiped from the men's department -the old guy in the men's department started looking at me in a funny sort of way, like he new what my "secret" was all about. All I can say is, knowing Bert was like being processed through a 'finishing school,' a prep-school's socialization. Now! I also worked across the street from the department store when I was younger. I worked on all three corners doing different things in each of those businesses. That's for another time.
               

Moody Street

Moody Street, where I grew up, was my school. In my era, being born in 1942, the public school system in those days did not believe in wasting their resources on the Irish Catholic out of Waltham, Mass. Yes, it's true when I say that I received my diploma in 1961; but if the truth be told, they never tested me because I was listed in their system for social promotion. So I had to take a summer course in English that year. The school's principal called me into his office and explained my situation; I was behind the 8ball. So he enrolled me in Newman Preparatory, located in Boston, Mass which would determine weather or not I could graduate from High School.  It was a wake up call. So, when I say: It's a Moody street "high," it's because Moody Street is where I learned the most.  I worked as stock boy in several of the major stores on the street, sold shoes, tended their stock room and made ready the replenishment's because they were sold to a deserving soul so that she could walk among her peers in Ladies' shoes.

I also worked the fountain at the local pharmacy and diner. So I got to fill the "brown bag" on Sunday mornings for the liquor prescription which doctors were prescribing for the local drunks. Right next to the "brown bags," I stacked the local Sunday papers. Yes! All the liquor stores were closed on Sundays when I was working on Moody Street. I started working under the table, meaning there was book keeping, as in double entry. But! The day that I turned 12 years old I could get a work permit which allowed me to do anything that I wished to do. I worked all over Moody Street, up one side and down the other. You teach yourself how to  read because you had to account for your actions. I started shining shoes at my grandfather's barber shop when I was 5 years old. Next store I did part time in the cobbler shop if someone wanted their newly repaired shoes shined by old Mr. Joyce. He was my neighbor just two streets over on Newton & Alder streets. I lived on the corner of Newton & Myrtle streets. They were one block apart going toward High street where his shoe shop repair business was located. Also! It was next door to my grandfather's barber shop. My grandfather didn't own the barber shop; he was the head barber until the day he died. He left the shop one day, they say, on a real good old boy's high - picking up his evening supply of cold beer at the liquor store on the corner of Newton & High streets. He was heading up Newton street, turning on Myrtle street because he lived right next door to where I lived on the corner. Yes! My grandfather dropped dead as he approached his own meager castle for reposing with a cold bottle of beer. Yes! I grew up on the seedy-side-of-the-street, picking up the change discarded because I looked needy. Now let me put it another way: My mother could squeeze a dime out of a penny because she was from the streets too. She was a ward of the state because she was given up for adoption as a new born but she was never adopted. The country was in a depression and she was Irish Catholic. Need I say more? Now! My then wife, circa 1966 Paris, who ran off with my brother in 1969, could squeeze a penny out of a dime if she were lucky. I learned how to slice and dice the dollar -before I could ride my bicycle. Fractions! This is how you learn to barter on a cold winter's day when someone wants their steps or driveway shoveled because of the snow accumulation. On a good snow day I could pick up at least a c-not, $100.00 dollars. I skipped school ever snow day. No one cared; I was Irish Catholic whose mother was being treated with shock treatment at the state's mental hospital. So the best thing that ever happened to me was going to summer school my senior year.  The wake up call did me good.
Well! Maybe meeting Bert, when I was selling shoes for one of the leading department stores on Moody Street, was also a mind altering experience. I'll tell you about Bert on another occasion because he gave me respect. Everybody else wanted to use me or my body. Bert wanted to use my mind. I loved Bert.     
             

Help!...listen to the Beatles....

Life is an opening up experience; so listen to the beat of your soul; it is how you displace your self among others. But if you are being controlled by sources out side of your reach, where you have to abide to the terms of these sources which you have no control over. Second Class: that is you. you dine on the crumbs made up of your dreams because you are not allowed into the game. And! If they lose their way as they trickle, twirl, swirl their way through life's resources, you have to clean up the mess with your unappreciated labor. You Know! They must have a parachute because they are in the game of 'life' and you are not one of them. For example, there was a time when white man ruled the market place of ideas, their women were their secretaries. Yet! today, those same women are running their own pathways; leaving their males to catch up with their feminine side of understanding. It's a new world order. Only! You are not allowed to 'vote' because you are second class. Like! You may be a 'felon,' therefore, disenfranchised! Because you are a felon, the labor market shuns you. Yes, you are being punished for being born. Otherwise, the 'society' would have to take some of the responsibilities behind making you a felon. Life is the crime of opportunity- where someone was not taking care of his own assets; leaving them unattended, so that others can avail themselves to that which is available because it was not tethered. OK! But it does bring up a very hollow sound when the bell tolls for thee. You know, as well as I, that they know, that you are not part of the main; you are the second class citizen who gets to refute John Dunn's Meditation 17  when you declare that there is no evidence in your life to support his idea that, "no man is an island unto himself, yet part of the main. Bull shit! Right! you are a felon. society is closed to you. You are a member of one of the fastest growing population in the United States. You are a member of the Criminal Justice system.
     

Echo....!

Echos from my youth, face to face with you again; only, now I'm 74, just hearing its failure to resonate. You are there, as I am here ... my imagination drifts back in time...when I was there too, so many years ago.  Back in the 60's when I was living in Paris, France.  I know that you can walk the streets that I walked; shop in the stores, dine on the corner of the many streets offering up for your palate and pleasures. Yes! You anchor the Echo that I'm passing through now- this moment in time. You mentioned Africa as a place of transcendence. My wife has that same feeling about Africa; she wants to expose me to its influence so that I too will be able to see the journey from which life's spore blossomed. Some day, I too will be free from the realities of truth. This is why I enjoyed your karma coming out of our contact. I know that it is easy to miss the flow of karma when you are 31 years old just blossoming in life's fertile presence. When I was 31, I was under the ether of Boston's in -crowd. That is to say...everything is going down within the in crowd; it's a college town. It's a small town if you are down with the in -crowd. I was drafted into military service in 1963. picked up a year of high security in Pakistan where the echos are still screaming because I was so unconscious. Believe it or not but I was considered a god by some of the inhabitants even though the government had me under surveillance because it thought that I was being unduly influenced by the tribal elites within the Pakistan military. I was just having fun -my kind of fun- not high security fun allowed within Peshawar, Pakistan. Anyway! I was tooling around the streets of Paris in 1966 with my new M.G. sports model. Yes! This is where you are now. This is what I'm enjoying about you. Like an explorer planting the county's flag. You can be what I foolishly disregarded; you can be alive, conscious. Whether we connect or not in the future... today's memory is mine... tomorrow's memory is yours unless you give it to someone like me to cherish. "May yesterday's dream be tomorrow's memory" Today's echo is forming now -enjoy the day's echo.

                       

"...lily white prejudice...."

I was listening to the 'Donald', the other day, on the evening news hour. He said that "if you are being unfairly treated" that you have to fight back; so, if you are a 'felon' who is not being treated fairly, how do you fight back when there is no structure for that purpose? Yes, it is a 'labor' issue just like the one Obama signed into law the other day about equity in pay for women in the workforce.  Now! Let's set the stage this time to unfurl three ideas: expectation, interest, & knowledge. As for the 'felon', asking the 'Donald' :" I'm being mistreated on a regular basis for simply being a 'felon'; so, how do I walk away from life's debate about the 'issues' which affect me; like you walking away from the presidential debate in Iowa.  Sidebar: a play with three acts. In act one, we learn to understand that there is very little 'expectation' on the part of the 'felon' as to his/her voice being heard. Act two fails because the 'felon' loses 'interest' in being part of the integrated whole and drifts into a snow bank of lily white prejudices trampling dreams into slush. Yes! Act three also fails to support those lily white prejudices from the caucus goer's old assumptions; therefore, the 'felon's' pathway is to adjust to the male adaptive habits to survive where the confluence of hope fractures, leading toward recidivism to the system of the lily white prejudices, prison. Now! How about it, 'Donald': I say that it is a labor issue; it should be addressed as such. Therefore, The Icicle Garden is looking into forming a labor union which will help to get the felon par with the Economy's social potential to survive. If you cannot participate because of a label like 'felon' than you are denied the experiences to attain the knowledge through participating in the process, participation. There needs to be a solution like a labor union because there is no due process under the laws of those lily white prejudices.  
                 

'...mythology...'

I never knew the basic truth. It is a 'fallacy' of logic to use the consequences of an action as evidence for the antecedent of the equivalent future action. I did not know about what was going on. It's not like, as in the song, Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Jones has got a thing going on....; I was simply reacting to the circumstances at hand; I was never the 'star' because I only played the part as circumstances played out. Now! It could be that those old assumptions took on a life of their own when I was out & about, doing the town as they say. You Know! Like King Sisyphus's stone, my stone keeps falling back down to the bottom, grounded in those old assumptions about life. So I think about how the old king who ruled over all still ended up for as hamburger for supper's dining. Yet again, I dug in, put my nose to those old assumptions -my grinding stone. Up the hill I go, like the old king,  failing to realize that maybe what I never knew about what was going on" was based in those F***ing old assumptions. OK! YES!  Maybe it is time to discern those previously undiscerned patterns about my 'stone.' How about your 'stone'? You know, maybe you should treat it like a meal that you are going to prepare for. You touch it; you taste it; you tap it so to listen to its resiliency, freshness. You pick it up, toss it around in your senses, toying with it. Now! You take it home trickling it, twirling it, swirling it, discovering the pleasure you can get sharing it with others, each savoring in the 'haul' from life's market place. Please! Explore your options, you do not have to have 'pizza' for dinner simply because it is Wednesday night. Fuck! Pizza is only a second hand emotion off of one of those stoned old assumptions that are always getting in your way, like prejudice for a stone cooked 'pizza'. So that you can still battle the battle of the waist band on your pajamas.  

"...It's only a paper moon..."

I have an attitude about myself - as if I had read the story of my life out of a book; like a third party. You, on the other hand, have all of your 'wits about you.' The stream running between our differences stems from my prison experiences followed up by probation experiences that caused me to have a mental breakdown -mental mishap. I attempted to kill myself because my living space was so toxic. For example, the state put me on the 'hit list' when it first came out; At that time, I was on probation, living in Charleston, S.C. 29401. Sidebar: Just last year or maybe a year and a half ago, some dude decided to kill people who were on the 'hit list' in S.C. I live in South Carolina; he killed his first choice; it could have very easily been me. He was caught on his second intended kill; it failed; but it could have been very easily me, again. Now! I'm attempting to pick up the 'pieces' again, to see how they fit; they will never fit the same again. Because, as it has been said, you are writing your 'book'; while I'm reading my 'book.' This is my life. Now! I'm dead.