Free-Fall Funnies

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Headnote: Here in Canada, trade with Cuba is perfectly legal. We ship them steel locomotives, they ship us leafy cigars—much to the chagrin of Yankee imperialists. In fact, adding further chagrin,  the head communist, Fidel Castro, was a pall bearer at our prime minister’s funeral. (Pierre Trudeau) At least my good U.S. cousins can take consolation from being so patriotically anti-communist! … Because it’s a pity they can never know what a truly good cigar tastes like.

…Ya, but only the good die young. I bet delinquent capitalists secretly sneak behind the boardroom to puff on contraband communist cigars. You think?

Hello Reader,

Got right-brain humour?

From writing fast?

At the writer’s centre: As we mingled putting our coats on I overheard someone going into the next room and saying my name. “Sean had good humour today,” answered by “Yes, we could hear you guys laughing.” So, I can seize the excuse to be lazy! Today I won’t spend man-hours crafting my weekly essay. But first:

As you may know, I meet at Friday Free-Fall with other writers. We write with a timer going, then we STOP, (with a one minute warning) and then around the long table we read aloud what we just wrote. 

We gather to use our creative side, to write without editing for once, and to crawl out of our lonely garrets to come and mingle. By free-fall I mean someone calls out a “prompt.” Then: Get writing! No pausing, no stopping and no looking back to make corrections. 

Of course, when you are “falling” so swiftly, it’s easier to be melodramatic than dramatic, easier to miss the funny-bone completely than to be slightly amusing. Writing in mid air makes any humour twice as funny, “if you could be there,” than if it were carefully crafted at a remote desk.

Well. I’m not saying my pieces will bring you a smile: Someone else did. Here goes:

prompt- 

why wait

Every day I would see Mrs. Pringle walking down the alley in her sensible shoes. Plock plock plock. She would pass east; and passing west was the flower girl, still energetic this early in the day, walking skipp, skipp, skipp, The sun would shine, and the air would blow nice smells from the bakery as I sat at a cutesy iron table, with a decent wooden chair.

Every day I would sip my coffee and think elevated noble thoughts—coffee does that, you know. And I would watch those people go by. I would think how formidable Mrs. Pringle was, in her prim outfit. I wouldn’t dare talk to her. At least, not in the here and now. Someday. 

And I would watch that sprightly flower girl. I wouldn’t dare talk to her, not when I am a dull flowerless middle aged man. She probably drank lemonade or organic tea. I would talk to these ladies one day, maybe, perhaps. Then one Wednesday morning, when the sun was particularly bright, I thought: Why wait?

Oh, course I had lots of sensible reasons to wait, or never talk at all… but… if I felt permission to talk some day, then now was the day. So I shouted, “Hello Mrs. Pringle!” And she stopped, stopped dead, turned her body to look at me, and I could tell her face was not used to smiling. A beat went by. Then, in a reserved voice, “Hello” she said.

At this point the flower girl was coming by. She saw Mrs. Pringle stopped still, and so she slowed, glanced at me. “We’re practising our hellos!” I said wildly.

Prompt-

look up

I love being a tourist at the seaside. Fresh air, the sound of seagulls going “scree, scree”—you never hear them inland where I live. The sight of sparkly waves, and all the real locals—and one of them was doing Tai Chi. Wow. Everybody knows that you travel to “meet the locals.” Although, maybe some of them were travellers like me. That Tai Chi lady looked like all her clothing was brand new, not like a tired local.

When I say tired, I mean that none of them looked up. Not at the exciting freighters passing in the distance, not at the mountains looming so close. Not at nature’s creatures of the air, wheeling and soaring on the air with their God-given wings. No, they all seemed to look down, or at least straight across. “How curious,” I thought.

Many, both young and old, had yellow sun hats. This being a school day, there were no big children, only the littler ones. A line of perambulators were lined up on the sidewalk. That’s what the locals call a stroller. Pram for short. I just took it all in, casting glances back at the prams, and forward at the mothers on their beach towels, bent over their little devices. Lord knows what they were texting and gawking at. This while the little ones were delighting only God and me. The mothers were missing out. But hey, what do I know? I was a tourist. 

A helicopter breezed by and I looked up. It was a Royal Marine helicopter—that was all the time I had to squint at it, because then I was really squinting. Some poor seagull, seeing that metal monster, had the—how can I put this politely?—had his innards scared out of him. And since gravity pulls innards down, and I was looking up… now I know why the locals never look up.

See? Actually, at that point I couldn’t see very well— but, see? Being a traveler can be educational! You learn things. I’m going back, as soon as I buy a sun hat.

For variety, sometimes we “write a list.”

List 

(prompt-) of how to get along with in-laws

Tell jokes

Laugh at in-law’s jokes.

If your in-laws have stone faces and never joke, then be God-fearing and charitable.

Remember that some people can only smile a bit, and some laugh inside.

If your mother-in-law has a yappy dog, don’t kick it.

At least, not where she can see you do it.

But if you can terrify the dog, then she’ll be amazed at how well it behaves around you.

Don’t waste your good Cuban cigars on Father-in-law.

In fact, don’t light up unless he does.

Then bring out your drugstore cigar, and that’ll shut him up.

But stop before you get sick, because that will give you away.

Prompt- 

life is wonderful

Life is wonderful if you are a tourist. You can pick up stories of seagulls, pick up a bored sister of a tired mother, You say, “OK, you watch over your darling as she takes her nap, while we’ll just go outside so we can shout at each other.” Is that rude? No, mothers need their rest too, and their friends deserve a chance to be restless.

As for the friend, I can’t tell you about her. I mean, I can, but then the rest of my story would be anti-climax. For I travel to meet the people, and her I got to know very well.  A little rushed, but well. So I better tell you about something else, like goldfish.

I went into an office building, and there was a canal right on the bottom floor. How bizarre. It had wonderful waves, and bubbles, and it disappeared into a tunnel at both ends. So people could still walk across the floor. The most wonderful thing was that my Australian drinking buddy didn’t abandon me when I commented to the security guard, “Ah, those luscious fish. I just want to pick one up and take a big bite!” 

The guard said, “You need to kill your appetite. Try this.” And he gave me a free cigar and stepped out side with us to smoke. But it was a fire door, and he closed it on us, locking us out. 

So I shared my cigar with my drinking buddy. But it was a drugstore cigar, so all he said was “Ar-r-r-rg!  Time for a drink!”

Sean Crawford

January 31

(Princess) Alexandra Writers Centre Society

at the new C-space

the renovated sandstone King Edward school

2018

Footnotes:

~This truly was written last Friday (Jan 25). I’m joking about being lazy. Someday, shall I do another free fall post? 

~I’ve never tried to free fall at home on my own, but you, dear reader, may find FF at home rewarding, if only as a confidence booster showing you too can write, and that you can do so without needing a big block of time. …Most of us at Friday FF don’t use a keyboard like a working stiff, but rather, a pen and pretty notebook like a writer having fun.

Lies of the Poor in Spirit

essaysbysean.blogspot.com

Recently a close relative lied to me about another relative: Some people have no self-discipline.

“I once made a small decision never to lie again.

Maybe not so small, but it didn't seem like a big deal since I didn't see myself as someone who lies often. This little thing changed me far more than any other big decision.”      Felipe (2016-04-23) #33

from the article Small Actions Changing Self Identity on the blog of Derek Silvers.

Hello Reader,

Did your relative tell you a lie?

If so, then I’m sorry.

And I’m sorry your relative won’t say ‘I’m sorry’ to you.

Did I ever tell you I grew up poor but honest? Supposedly, nobody in my fine family ever lied.

Well. To paraphrase the preacher on Firefly, “There is a special place in hell for those who talk in theatres, molest others or tell lies to children.” 

(Forgive me for saying so, but the test to check if you are molesting is: Are you being gratified?) 

The test for lies, to me, is not are you are being happy?—of course we are happy to tell about the tooth fairy, and our child is too. The test is whether you’re being happy at the expense of an innocent child.

Here’s an example. I was a small boy in a poor remote large family. Our mattresses and pillows had stripes like in a prison camp. My much older brother, in a fit of low self esteem, told me and Mum that my pillow had bugs in it. I’m sure Mum answered me that no, that wasn’t true. And—memory is hazy—I think I was so distressed that, maybe, I got her to admit that my brother didn’t really think so… If indeed I did so, then I have pushed the knowledge away. I didn’t want to think anyone in my family lied. Because in the face of all our poverty and abuse, at least I could still be proud to be a member of a family that was “poor but honest.” 

How honest? We had a big dog that barked and chased people so much that I feared police trouble. We had a long dirt driveway. One quiet summer evening, without hearing or seeing their car, I suddenly noticed two mounted policemen were standing at our porch. The dog, lying there, hadn’t said a thing. Yes, even our dog was honest and respectful of cops.

One thing I know for sure: When a lie doesn’t nurture, it’s abusive. 

Again the porch. This time it was cold, after dark, in the fall. Parents far away. No dog. My older brothers were upstairs playing cards in the kitchen, not in the “front room” by the front porch door. From the basement, I could see a man in a long dark blue penitentiary coat banging his poor knuckles on our solid hardwood door. A futile effort, it must have really hurt. We were too poor for a doorbell or knocker. So of course I went upstairs and informed my older bothers that there was a man at the door. They disregarded my information; didn’t believe me. So I opened the door myself. 

Yes, my brothers were idiots. My point is that abuse comes in clusters. (Like a Venn diagram) If people will lie to others, then they may also disregard others, perhaps after lying to themselves about the gratification they feel from their disregard and lies. As you might say about convicts in “the joint,” or executives at Enron, “They start out undisciplined enough to con others, and end up slack enough to con themselves.” I question now whether my family believed what they said about me—maybe they were just weaklings.

Another perspective: Over in Europe, back when my dad was a young man serving with the allied forces, a freedom fighter said, “If you lie to the public, sooner or later you start believing your own lies.” I agree. One day you find yourself planning to invade a country with over twice the population and over ten times the steel and factory capacity. And nobody can pierce your lies with common sense to tell you: It’s madness to invade Russia.     

I remember a child in high school—a girl, not a woman— storming out the door, gone forever, as her abusive father yelled, “You’ll become a street prostitute!” Not in those words, exactly, but you know what I mean. The girl believed her father meant it. She still does, and so do I. 

You may think he was telling her a white lie, for her own good, to enable her to rebelliously find the strength to avoid prostitution. I doubt it. If so, then surely his lie gratified him into believing it. His daughter can’t mind-read, she won’t ever know anything but what she heard that night. 

Happily, she ended up getting her own business over in Australia, and even owning a house. Years later, back in Canada, she went job searching and kept a manila folder of her rejections—for the humbleness. Ever reminding herself that yes, you can be a “winner,” and still not get a job during a bad economy. When I last saw her? She was working again. Happy ending.

It wasn’t until years after my home, one night at a smokey (open)  AA meeting, that I heard a concept-tool: “cash register honesty.” Aha! That’s what my family had! Their constant “honesty,” of the cash register sort, served to give power to their secret weapon: Being dishonest about each other. I was sure angry when I saw through their “honesty camouflage.”  All that disregard, all those things they “believed” about me—you know, there’s a movie about “dirty rotten scoundrels.”

No wonder a certain fairy tale is classic. You know, where from the other side of the looking glass an ugly duckling is actually a swan, paddling away from the ugly angry birds.

Today I can recite, “Doggone it, I am a good guy, and people like me.” And hey, a great man has mercy: That is why, on my good days, I don’t think certain lying relatives have a special spot in hell.

Sean Crawford

Calgary

January

2017

Footnotes:

~As Grandmother would advise a young woman: No artist paints one picture, no criminal commits one crime. If your date lies to the waiter, then sooner or later he will lie to you.

~I like how the main character in Summer of My German Soldier never tries to con herself, or anyone. She sees her family and community through innocent eyes.  I read the sequel too: It’s at the university education faculty library…. I guess a life among fellow innocent swans is the best revenge.

~Of course it’s hard to believe your nearest and dearest are lying. I find newspaper advice columnists are usually too compassionate to name a lie. Rather, they work around it by advising a reader to use assertiveness or find an objective third person for counselling. So often someone writes in, no doubt having cried tears on the page, “But when I ask him about it, he says (X)!”

The sob sisters are blocked by statement (X)  That’s understandable. Sometimes it’s just too sickening, right to the pit of your stomach in the well of your despair, to admit your loved one is lying to you.

~Excellent review (link) for Firefly by my buddy Blair.