Stick around…….

Scene repeats itself damn near every Saturday/Sunday morning. “Sausage biscuit, sausage McMuffin, a Senior coffee and a water please.”…. After reading the paper, downing a few cups of the fitty-nine cent coffee.. Mother Nature calls.

There’s something wretched about the odor of the squatter in Mickey D’s in the town where I live. It’s not an unkept/unclean smell.. I can’t explain it.. mebbe the chemicals they use to keep it clean.. It’s just a smell so putrid, it makes one stop and think “why do I have to do this (be here) day after day, week after week, month after month?”

Then, the mirror greets me.. And I think “you dumbass… you come here/’preach’, but you’re just as bad as those 'evils' that you preach ‘agin”.. and the mirrors right..

Remember my buddy Zeke? The old mechanic where I worked eons ago at United Airlines. He fixed our ground equipment - but, we let that crap (the ground equipment) literally become fatal before we’d take it to him to fix because he was so cantankerous. Wasn’t worth the ear bending, glaring looks he passed out..

Same Zeke, at the enda the day.. Walked up to this huge monthly calendar he had on the wall.. Took his magic marker and swiped a HUGE “X” across the day.. As if to say.. (Close your ears) "THERE, you mother-fucker (life), I made it thru another one.”

I was “making an ‘X’” this morning when I whined to myself about the putrid restroom. Victor, please remind yourself ‘what’s coming.’… coming soon (to a theater near you).. Affliction.. Could be heart… could be memory loss… stroke... Parkinsons.. Deafness… blindness.. Falls… dizziness…depression… infection.. Anemia… you name, it potentially lies ahead…..

Soooooooooooooooo.. (Remember, I preach to Victor, hitchhikers welcome) “take that muther-dubber (the day, this day, any day we’re on the planet without the aforementioned afflictions) and run... enjoy.. be glad.. don't worry/be happy.”

You young turds… you think we (the fitty-sixty-something aged folks) are the only ones that should stop and “kiss the day?”… take a peek at the obits some day. You just never know. Parenting is ahead too.. A lifelong responsibility. Sometimes can be very frustrating (always rewarding though)…

One day, quiet will happen. No pitter patter of footsteps… Fleeting, time is. Enjoy.

Ladder climbing for you thirty/forty-somethings takes center stage. Sure, go for it, but don’t let it blind you from the goings on, wonder of the things, people, places around you. (Ladder climbing is followed very closely to tending for ailing parents.. So, if they’re “not there yet” be very thankful, and give them the most valuable gift you can - your time.

I apologize oh Mickey D’s mirror in the putrid smelling bathroom, I’m truly glad to be here. I hope I getta come and do it again next Saturday/Sunday. And I promise to smile (mebbe holding my nose) as I do.

Nifty nifty article about’a 90 year old guy in today’s Kansas City Star.. Walt Bodine.. For 60 years he’s been a local radio talk show host (and still is).. Nice, nice man. Today, he’s confined to a wheelchair and no longer is able to see… yet he knows the beauty out there.. In a celebratory birthday party for him, he’d lovingly grab the arm of every one that came up to him.. carningly ask “now tell me who you are?”… and then he’d remember them… say super nice things about them.. He “gets it”… life… fleeting.. He doesn’t pity himself due to no sight, or being wheelchair bound. He’s gladly here.

Walt’s parting advice? “Stick around… something marvelous might happen.”

Mirror mirror on the wall.. Again apologies.. And I henceforth promise to suckup the wonder of it all…………….. Daily……….. Hourly…….. Minute by minute…..

Love, Victurd