Tag: Life

Considering the Classics

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One Christmas, my mother bought for me a copy of Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. That was a first edition copy, with a flawless dustjacket. – And it should have been! The book had been published earlier that year. It was brand new! And I learned a lot about a couple of things from that book.

That is why I am rereading it, now. And, once again, I find myself in possession of a NEW copy of that very same book… it’s just a Scribner CLASSICS edition. The damn book was originally published 21 years ago! – Considered a CLASSIC, now. Now: what the hell does that make me?

Almost 40!

That is what that makes me!

Angry about it? Hell, no. A little bit confused? Most definitely. When & how the hell did it happen? I’m rereading a book I got for Christmas twenty years ago.

I’m surprised I made it TO twenty. I’m sure as hell no CLASSIC, like that good book. I may have picked up some things along the way, but I am one pathetic, far-cry away from being adult. No classic. Just… well… me.

My great uncle was a classic. My grandparents were classics. I’m just now starting to accept that maybe my parents have reached classic CONSIDERATIONS!

But they are only allowed to be considered. Not amended into any contract the would classify them one foot closer into the grave.

I know; I know.

It is a stupid & childish notion that your parents will NEVER be old. Your parents cannot die. And, when you have been blessed to have REAL parent, any thoughts of them becoming frail & fragile &, dare I say it, even CLASSIC, we – you & me, Reader – might have to start thinking about things more realistically.

For example: there was a treacherous stretch of time there, not that long ago, in fact, where I was pretty comfortable & confident that my parents would be burying me. Or cremating me. Or what-ever-the-hell they had in mind for my corpse.

Then, things change. Sometimes, it’s fast, like a bullet; other times, it is slow as the poison being extracted from the Seed or the Root or the Leaf.

The important thing, for me: things DID change.

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On the Bench…

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67 Drawing Of Two People Sitting On A Bench Illustrations & Clip Art - iStock

An aging man ask the aging woman how life had been treating her.

“Just fine,” she responded. “Raising my little boy to be a Big Man. Working nights. Don’t have much of a social life. But when I have an itch that needs scratched, I have a nice man stashed away that I visit that makes me supper. And he makes me breakfast in the morning.”

“Good for you,” the man said.

“Does anyone cook you breakfast,” she asked, adding an emphasis on BREAKFAST.

“Yes. And we are very happy.”

“Why do you look sad, then?”

An aging man does not like to answer those kinds of questions. They are HARD questions. Because, sometimes, men don’t know why they are sad.

They get up.

They work.

They talk with aging women about itches that get scratched.

There are some smirks.

Some laughs.

Sometimes when all SHOULD feel right & crisp & fulfilled… for him, they are not.

His back is sore.

The neck tingles for some supernatural reason he is too terrified to confront.

He has to take a pill to wake up.

Another, different pill to go to sleep.

A pill to stimulate an appetite.

Another one to suppress it.

There are debts he knows will never be paid-off.

That bills will be there waiting & picking away at him

But, at the moment, this Young, aging Mother made his day: she reminded him there ARE things like breakfasts to look forward to. That, sometimes, there is an extra egg in the carton. And that is nothing to sneeze at.

She reminded him a dollar was still VERY important. Versus the person that NEEDS one.

How could he argue with someone like this?

Their STATEMENT is so clear, so driven with intent, he was beside himself. And, after a few more minutes of “telling-it-the-way-it-is,” he felt a little better.

Dropping the dime – or a million number of dimes, into the slots – IS something easy to do.

But that’s just not his style.