THE DAY OF THE ESTATE AND REAL ESTATE SALE

THEIR IS NO THOUGHT AND CAREFUL PLANNING BEHIND THIS ILLUSTRATION. IT IS SIMPLY AN IMAGE AND NOTHING MORE.
THERE'S A CHAIR OR TWO, A COUPLE OF WINDOW FRAMES THAT WOULD LOOK GOOD ON ANOTHER WINDOW IN SOME OTHER SCENE. SIGNS ABOUT A SALE, AN ESTATE SALE. THERE ARE OLD FLOWER POTS, SOME BRAND NEW WHILE OTHERS HAVE TRACES OF OLD SOIL AND DIRT FROM GARDENS OF THE PAST. AND AMONG THE ITEMS SCHEDULED TO BE SOLD, A FEW BARS OF GOLD, OLD MEMORIES OF ANOTHER TIME BUT NOT ANOTHER PLACE. THE PLACE WHERE IT ALL HAPPENED, NO LONGER NEEDED, IT HAS GROWN TOO OLD. IT WILL BE SOLD. AND SO IT WAS AND SO IT GOES, TIME AND AGAIN, DAY AFTER DAY, UNCLES AND AUNTS PERSONAL ITEMS, NO LONGER NEEDED, NOT OUTGROWN, JUST NO LONGER NEEDED. THE AUNT USUALLY GOES LAST.

AN ESSAY ON THE THEORY OF ENERGY: I GET A CHARGE OUT OF LIFE

THROUGH THE FENCE I SEE MORE ELECTRICITY THAN I CAN UNDERSTAND. AT FIRST GLANCE, IT MIGHT BE A BIT CONFUSING. NOT MIGHT, IT IS CONFUSING. LIFE ITSELF IS CONFUSING. BUT THAT IS ONLY MY OPINION. FOR THOSE WHO ARE NOT CURIOUS ABOUT ENERGY, LIFE IS SIMPLE AND EASY. OF COURSE, IF THEY TOUCHED ONE OR TWO OF THOSE ELEMENTS BEHIND THE FENCE, LIFE WOULD CEASE TO BE SIMPLE AND EASY, NOR WOULD THEY BE TROUBLED OR CURIOUS ABOUT ENERGY. NO THEY WOULD, MOST CERTAINLY FIND OUT ABOUT ENERGY FIRST HAND.

NOBODY SHOULD SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES OF SUCH AN ELECTRICAL CHARGE UNLESS, OF COURSE, THEY DESERVED IT. AND THAT BRINGS UP YET ANOTHER SUBJECT, THAT OF CAPITAL OR CAPITOL PUNISHMENT. EXCUSE ME! WHO AM I TO JUDGE ANOTHER? BUT IS IT OKAY TO SAY THAT I BELIEVE HITLER WAS ONE WHO SHOULD HAVE BEEN LET LOOSE BEHIND THE FENCE ABOVE IN AN ELECTRICAL STORM. BUT SOMEHOW THIS ESSAY ON ENERGY IS DIGRESSING, DRIFTING SOMEWHAT AIMLESSLY AND GOING WHERE? LET ME RETURN TO THE ORIGIN OF THIS PHOTO ESSAY. I WAS LOOKING FOR A SOMEWHAT UNIQUE PHOTO TO WRITE ABOUT. HAVE YOU EVER DONE THIS? DONE WHAT, YOU ASK? PICKED OUT A PHOTOGRAPH AND TRIED WRITING SOMETHING INTERESTING ABOUT IT, THAT'S WHAT. NO, I AM NOT SUFFERING ANY ILLUSIONS THAT THIS ESSAY IS INTERESTING, I SIMPLY HOPE IT HAS SOME ELECTRICITY SURROUNDING IT, ENOUGH TO KEEP THE READER FROM SNOOZING. YOU HAVE HEARD IT SAID THAT "...IF YOU SNOOZE, YOU LOSE" RIGHT? DO YOU BELIEVE IT? REALLY, I DON'T GIVE A RODENT'S REAR END IF YOU HAVE HEARD IT OR NOT AND I AM NOT BEING RUDE, JUST HONEST AND REALISTIC. DO YOU SUPPOSE THERE ARE MANY RATS THAT RESIDE WITHIN THE PERIMETER OF THE FENCE THAT SURROUNDS THIS POWER STATION? AND IF THERE ARE SUCH RODENTS ZIPPING ABOUT, DO YOU FEEL THAT THEY HAVE ABSORBED ANY TOXIC MINERALS IN THEIR MOLECULES? BUT HERE'S A THOUGHT I DO WANT TO SHARE SINCE IT HAS BEEN MENTIONED: RATS THAT MAY HAVE ABSORBED SUCH FOREIGN ELEMENTS MIGHT HAVE DEVELOPED A TOLERANCE (THEY ALWAYS DO) AND MIGHT, I SAY MIGHT, BECOME A SUPER RAT, A REAL BAD ASS MEAN ASS RAT THAT MIGHT DESTROY SOCIETY AND CULTURE AS WE KNOW IT NOW. WHAT? YOU SAY THAT IT COULDN'T GET MUCH WORSE. NO, NO, ONE MUST HAVE HOPE, A POSITIVE ATTITUDE FOR THERE WILL ALWAYS BE RATS AMONG US. WHO WAS IT THAT SAID THAT, "YE SHALL ALWAYS HAVE THE RATS AMONGST YE"? WHATEVER, WE KNOW WE HAVE THE POOR, THE RICH, THE FREE, THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY, SO WHAT ELSE IS NEW? HEY, I AM JUST GLAD TO BE ALIVE AND FREE AND NEITHER RICH NOR POOR, BUT SUFFICIENT ENERGY TO SURVIVE AND LOOK FORWARD TO YET ANOTHER DAY.

WHEN LIFE BECOMES A MAZE

WHEN LIFE BECOMES A MAZE, TOO COMPLEX TO FIND ANYTHING THAT WORKS JUST RIGHT, IT MIGHT BE TIME TO SELL THE ODD REMOTES AND ALL THE WEIRD AND FOREVER BLINKING LCD THINGS THAT CHEAT US OF A NORMAL SIMPLE SWITCH AND FLIP KIND OF LIFE BUT KEEP THE BATTERIES JUST IN CASE THERE MIGHT BE A CHANGE OF MIND SOMEDAY, SOMEDAY, SOMEDAY, JUST A CHANGE OF MIND, JUST A CHANGE OF, JUST A CHANGE, JUST A CHANGE, SOMEDAY, KEEP THE, JUST A CHEAT, NORMAL KEEP THE CHANGE, SOMEDAY, SOMEDAY, BATTERIES, BATTERIES, BATTERIES, JUST, A SOMEDAY, SOMEDAY, SOMEDAY, IN CASE, SOMEDAY, JUST

THE ISSUE OF HESITATION ABOUT THE FINAL DESTINATION

Just because the wheels are turning doesn't mean you're going anywhere different than where you've been before. The best way to find out where you're headed is to look in the rear-view mirror and see where you have been. If you don't like where you're headed, you have a choice to stop and get out; you can put it in reverse and waste more time going back to where you started from. Or you can continue on and hope you like your final destination. Figure out your own plans well in advance just in case you might want to make some preliminary changes.

THE WILL BEHIND LIONBERGER'S AUTO PARTS CALENDAR

The difference between love and all of the other emotions waits quite often until death calls the family members together to see

who got what and how soon it will be delivered. I recall when an uncle

died in 1984. Betty said there was no will; she has, I have heard, gone to get her due reward. She sent my daughter a blue velvet dress from Hawaii with a chuckle she didn't think I heard. It was the same jealous giggle I had heard in the family room at the funeral held in August of that year. Her snicker came shortly after the recording of "In the Garden." Some call it "He Walks With Me." She had what she thought was the last laugh, especially when her husband delivered the wheelbarrow full of rusty tools from his trunk to my driveway with a strange expression on his face. Among the rusty tools, nuts and bolts was a wooden box full of old clay pots, some cracked, some with soil so hard it had almost petrified, like a smile on a dead persons face we can't see once the lid of the casket closes for the final time. Or so some might think...for the final time. I never touched the rusty tools, not once, just buried them between the western wall and the eastern gate to wait and see what might spring up through the soil someday. The flower pots, I sensed were not meant to be my inheritance, but I accepted them with glee and shook Rick's hand. She would have to buy another dozen or two to start another season of her special perrywinkles and lilies of the valley that won her ribbons. She never called to ask for their return. I use them to get my ivy and special marigolds a good start each spring. I guess Betty never knew Uncle Jim had told me where the will was long before he died. It was, if anyone might want to know, behind the calendar from Lionberger's Auto Parts. Rest in Peace, Betty, dear. What did you tell Uncle Jim about the will, or did he even have to ask?

THE LEGEND OF THAT OLD GOLD STAR MOTHER

That old home back in the woods was there for years and I took it for granted that it would be there forever so I never missed it, really, just looked at it in every season and felt good because I knew it belonged to a widow lady up in age who no longer gardened but sat beside the big west window and watched the world change the way it has, the wars won, the war lost in 1972, the others tied, the thousands who died for no reasons like a Pearl Harbor kind of war. There was the two gold stars in the west window; they finally dimmed, even in the sunsets they stop reflecting. There was the gold someone said she had since her husband died and where she kept it nobody knew and there were other things said about the woman who sat beside that west window keeping her own notes on neighborhood payments to keep lights on,and those writing letters to old friends before they died, before the internet made ballpoint pens obsolete. Somebody said her sons were killed by snipers, the eldest while reading a letter from his girlfriend beneath a palm tree somewhere in some south seas islands called the Solomons, Tulagi was its name.The other son,the second son,the younger of the two, died from a single sniper bullet that struck him right between his eyes. Killed in the Philippines where he was arming Hucks with 45s,though they far preferred their machetes for close-up and hand-to-hand and just killing, killing, killing. Yes,alive until a single bullet hit him right between his eyes. The body never came back. Purple Hearts were delivered by two tall Marines, so they say. That old home was not always in the woods I've heard. There was a street with lanes and the water mains were in with plans for a suburban project planned, then she backed out time and again,so many times the city finally left her alone considering her grief and everything. That house is gone now; it's been gone for nearly ten years. I know she must have died back then, nearly one hundred years old I'm told and I know that's right because I've done the math on things and times like life and death so many times before.