Time

It has been some time (more about that later) since I have been able to bore my reader(s?). I have an excuse, lame though it may be. When I was ensconced in my hotel room in Florida listening to a BYU basketball game by tuning my trusty laptop to KSL, I happened to touch the power supply and came back with 3rd degree burns. This is not right, thought I. But even after checking the connection it was still hotter than the shady side of the sun. I tried it again the next day with the same results so I figured it was toast (hee hee).

A while after I got home I had Pete order a new one online. They said it would ship in 5 or 9 weeks so I knew that poor reader would get withdrawal symptoms but, low and behold, it was delivered to our front door the very next day! It was like they had a guy waiting with his engine running just to get it to me. Cool huh?

Some time ago I got an offer in the mail to try Time magazine for $12 for a year. 52 issues for $12 seemed like a great deal to me so we got it. I was sure they would really sock it to me when it came time to renew because I was rather hooked on reading each issue from cover to cover. It seems to be much more evenhanded and not as left-leaning as most of the media.

I got a notice last year that I would need to renew if I wanted to keep getting my news fix. Now it was going to cost me $20 for a year or, get this, $30 for FOUR years. No-brainer. I'd like to think I'm much smarter now too.

February 22 was George Washington's birthday. I don't know how old he would have been since he's quite dead but my sister Bonnie (also dead) would have been 63 years old. She died in 1985, the year after being named the Utah Poet of the the Year. I wondered what she would have been like at 63. How many more poems we would have and how many more beautiful paintings and how many more young people she would have influenced in art and life.

As a tribute to her and my Dad, here is what I consider her best poem:

THE PROVIDER

He gave us all it took to get along.

Including bowls of laughter with our soup

And closets full of teasing till we cried.

He spoke too loud because he couldn't hear

With the ear that was hurt when he picked a fight

With someone twice as big and just as drunk.

I never saw my mom pass his chair

and miss a friendly grab.

Her primness tabled, she would buss him back.

His hair was mostly salted, partly black.

The caterpillar of his eyebrow

Humped above his spangle-damp brown eyes.

And he could almost flap his ears

Like they were hinged next to his head..

And he would flap in church.

Our dignity would suffer, mom's face would furrow.

For work he wore a red-plaid lumber-jacking shirt.

And boots it was mine to lace up.

As it was his to brush and braid my hair.

And he would whisker-burn and sting my cheeks

Bur how I loved that hurt and loved that man.

His rowdy life was like a rowdy day

So busy that you get caught up with it

Forgetting that the night will ever come.

Night was like his undetected fragile heart.

And like the night that came, my father died.



Thank you Bonnie.