Little Looks At Lots of Things

By Ethelyn Boddy

Channel surfer?
Flick through 89 years of human rights, peace search, eco-world, healthy diet. Even Jesus, Shakespeare and Elvis are in the script.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Aug 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483415581

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Boddy

Copyright © 2014 Ethelyn Boddy.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-1558-1 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 08/05/2014

To the Addled Firefly

LLALOT (Little Looks at Lots of Things) – to begin my last year as an octogenarian.

Hi. This book is built for browsing. (There’s a song in those words.)

These introductory paragraphs float above my work. The actual beginning is somewhere past the middle now, since I learned to add to the beginning and not the end. This is a book without a storyline or chronology. It is without chapter, but has lots of verse. It is a flitting through my saved documents and pasting them in. Threaded through the docs, are current comments. No table of contents or index.

A boldface sentence marks the beginning of a LL (little look).

Some documents are before an ordinary PC owner had a mouse. The mouse has been around for 40 years for the techies, but some of these documents have been saved through two computers prior to the mouse. I got a complimentary mouse with my new laptop, but I am not using it. I must learn to do without. New devices use touch. It could be said that LLALOT encompasses the complete era of the mouse.

Since this book was conceived in May for July publication, this poem entitled Christmas Gifts that runs the gamut of my life seems a good starter selection:

Christmas Gifts

Wash I commanded.

Germs I said.

Yvonne looked at me

and shook her head.

She thought there

wouldn’t be

Something that she

couldn’t see.

But I believed

what Mother said.

I saw the things there

in my head.

My mother talked of

being clean,

And of things I hadn’t seen.

Germs, and Santa Claus, and God.

Uncle Earl gave

me advice.

"When you see Santa,

treat him nice.

"Punch him in his

big, fat pot.

He’ll bring you everything

you want."

So I did,

and he did, too.

What Uncle Earl said

was true.

The next year

I knew the way

To make Santa’s

visit pay.

The secret was

to be so cute

For the man who wore

the bright red suit.

Later, my mother told of panic seizing her.

She looked around and I was gone.

I had just been with Santa.

He was gone, too.

She began a frantic search.

In the back of the store she found us.

I was dancing the Charleston,

entertaining the store clerks and Santa.

The story was fun.

My mother told it many times.

I liked hearing her tell it.

I was sure

I had earned lots

Of darling toys

for tiny tots.

At six I knew. With knobby knees

and skinny arms,

Cute was not among

my charms.

This year

the way to get the stuff

Was to be

really good enough.

My little sister

was so new,

I needed presents

for her, too.

Too young to teach her

to be cute

For the big fat man

in the bright red suit.

I needed to

be good for two.

Hard, hard work

I had to do.

I told myself

I must be strong.

My Santa list

was very long.

Mother and Daddy put bread wrappers in their shoes

held down with cardboard.

They had no money to spend for toys.

I would never ask my mother and daddy for toys.

Santa was my only chance.

I was very, very good.

Outside the school

ready to march in,

All the children stood in rows,

Two long rows, like lined-up dominoes.

One flitting printed dress,

A girl in it I guess,

Danced from her line

into mine.

And where she touched

the news reflexed,

Felling each small person

as one hit the next.

"Your mama and your papa give you the presents,

not Santa Claus."

The shining truth struck.

I’d been such a fool.

My grief throbbed inside me

As I marched into school.

Being cute had earned nothing,

and neither had good.

I’d asked for so much,

Much more than I should.

They gave toys to me,

my parents so sweet,

While they wore old shoes

on their own icy feet.

*****

The old bacteriology professor

shook like the Brownian movement he described.

He sneered as he peered

through the microscope

at my tooth scrapings.

Bad slide.

No germs.

Then he checked the slide

made of cells

from my cheek lining.

The cells lay in pristine perfection.

He snickered.

(More forgiving of his own misjudgment

of my skill than he was of me

when he thought I lacked it.)

What I lacked was germs.

Good slide.

No germs.

What are you missing out on?

classmates chided.

My lab partner shyly offered

to share his germs with me.

I accepted.

And through that oil immersed lens

I saw them.

Germs.

A lovely gift.

Thank you.

*****

We play dominoes,

my father (now ninety-six) and I.

The dominoes,

a white tile set with colored dots,

A Christmas gift.

They clank like old bones as we stir them.

Then, as we line them up between us,

Attaching the coded ends

like giant strands of DNA,

I ponder.

In germs, the gift of life;

and Santa, the gift of fantasy;

have I seen God?

It was my last month of third grade. My mom, dad, little sister and I moved to Columbia, Missouri from Kirksville. My teacher wrote a nice letter to my new teacher, but it didn’t seem to have any effect, because she failed to recognize I was a good student and kept poking at a circle with numbers all around it and would call on people, and I didn’t know what she was doing. Now, I realize this was multiplication, and I would have been happy to learn my tables, if I had known about them.

My mother would probably have figured out what these circles and numbers were and have helped me learn the multiplication tables if I had talked to her about it, but she was so busy with other things, like my two-year-old sister slipping into the 5-gallon crock-jar with her feet up around her ears, and nobody could get her unstuck. Or making plans for the new house or buying wood to build it, or trying to find lost stuff from when we moved. I didn`t say anything, but she knew I wasn’t too happy.

That`s why we moved into our new house before it was done – the ceilings weren`t up yet – just rafters – but we moved in anyway. It was located about three miles outside Columbia, and a quarter mile from a rural one-room school house. Rural schools started in the middle of August, two weeks earlier than town schools, and my parents had said before we moved to Columbia that I should go to the town school, but since my month there hadn’t been all that great, they decided I should attend the rural school and see how I like it.

It was at the one-room school that I met Dorothy Butler, my best friend in the whole world, mainly because she was the only other girl my age who was there. I think I would have wanted her for my best friend even if I had had lots to choose from, but I think if she`d had a choice; she probably would have chosen someone else.

My best friend, Dorothy Butler told me that the last Friday in August they have a pie supper that is where all the ladies bring pies and all the men bid on them and buy them. She was going to the pie supper and I could walk there with her if I wanted to, since she lived halfway between my house and the school.

This was exciting. I asked Dorothy who she wanted to buy her pie, and she said she didn’t care, just so it wasn’t old Mr. Bedford. Dorothy said that Mr. Bedford was president of the school board and he had a huge moustache that curled into his mouth. So, anybody but old Mr. Bedford was okay with her. I didn’t think we had school presidents at Kirksville. We had a principal who had the sixth grade class upstairs. But that was a woman.

The Wednesday before the pie supper, we all took a little slip of paper home that told about the pie supper, what time it was, and I don’t remember what time, and how early to get there with the pies. My mother baked a double-crust pie, likely thinking that was the most durable for a nine-year-old to carry. I don’t remember what the filling was, some kind of fruit. Apples? I`d guess canned cherries. She was big on canned cherries.

It was still daylight when I walked to Dorothy Butler`s house. Dorothy looked at my pie and was really perplexed. She had a lovely little box all decorated with crepe paper. (She had two older sisters who were also going, so she had some help fixing it up.) The box was filled with teeny, crustless sandwiches, candy kisses, and grapes. She asked her mother for a couple of forks for me because all I had was a pie.

When we got to the pie supper, I discovered my pie was the only real pie there. A few years later they were referred to as box suppers but not in time to save me. All the ladies and girls had lovely baskets, creatively decorated, holding all kinds of fancy fruit and sweets. Picnicky, easy-to-eat stuff. The auctioneer, who sounded just like Lucky Strike means fine tobacco, sold the pies to the highest bidder. Lots of guys wanted to buy Dorothy Butler`s big sisters, Jane and Lola`s pies. I think Lola`s pie made more money than anyone else`s.

Old Mr. Bedford, thinking it was his presidential duty, I guess, bought my pie. Dorothy had described him right, except the moustache was a little bigger than I had imagined. And he wheezed, and sucked in air between his two front teeth with a kind of whistle. He used his pocket knife to cut the pie. I didn’t want any. I don`t remember how he went about eating it. He gave me a Hershey Bar.

I don`t remember anymore. I know I would have returned Dorothy Butler`s mother`s forks, and I would have taken home the pie pan. But I don`t remember that part of it. I just know that the incident has colored the rest of my life. When I was nine years old, I lived through a totally worst case scenario…and it wasn`t all that bad.

From that time on, I have always been willing to take pies to pie suppers, and I’m not stopping now, just because I’m 89.

The beginning pop-tart? I found this piece I had written before there were TVs, maybe before Ethelyn was Boddy, so long ago that parents allowed their twelve-year-olds to go overnight camping without adult supervision, bread wrappers were waxed paper that could be opened at either end or both ends and the fashionable new thing, milk in a carton instead of a bottle. I think this pie is called a character study.

Turpentine Tolls and His Protein Beans

I don`t know how Turpentine Tolls got the name, but it was so long ago that now we just call him Turp. Even all his teachers call him that, although somebody, somewhere, must know his real name.

Now, Turp is bigger than the rest of us boys. Big as most of us put together. Not fat—big. I think that`s why we always want him to go with us on all-night camping trips. We figure he could lick anything he`d a mind to. You know, Grizzly Bears and Tigers and Things that you don`t think about until it gets dark, and then you begin to realize that it`s possible for them to be hiding in the woods and nobody ever to see them in daylight.

Everybody knows, we don`t take Turp on these camping trips because we like him. He is the most repulsive person anybody ever knew. He is always bragging and acting like he`s smarter than the rest of us. He doesn’t act bully and pick fights. I guess we all know he`d win in fisticuffs (that means fighting). It`s just that he always knows everything better than the rest of us, and keeps talking about it.

Willy called me about the guys each fixing his supper and the gang all hiking out to the cabin to eat and then sleeping there all night. He sighed and said, I guess we`ll have to ask ol` Turp, `though he`s repulsive.

Yes, I sighed, too. We couldn`t go without him.

So I fixed a whole loaf of bread into peanut-butter sandwiches, and poured about half a cup of milk out of a carton, filling it back up with chocolate syrup. I fastened the carton back together with a paper clip and put the sandwiches, as carefully as I could, back into the bread wrapper. There were blankets at the cabin so the chocolate milk and sandwiches for my supper were all I had to take.

We all met at Willy`s house on the front porch—and so help me—as soon as Mr. Turpentine Tolls got there he began being his usual repulsive self.

All the fellows had paper bags or packages of sandwiches and apples and things. Joe Frizbee even had a gallon thermos of lemonade. But not Turp.

Oh, he screamed. You stupid guys. See what I’m taking? A candy bar containing dextrose for quick energy, He patted one hip pocket. A couple of carrots for a raw vegetable, he patted the other hip pocket. And a can of beans which fits concisely (that means neatly) in my jacket pocket.

Then he started sounding like a combination of a radio commercial and Miss Snowden`s health class.

Beans, he informed us, "contain just gobs of protein, which is a great body-building food. Not only that, but I shall have a hot meal while you stupid things eat your grubby cold sandwiches. How do I put up with you ignorant guys?"

The rest of us didn’t say much. We didn`t have a chance. He kept griping the whole way to the cabin. To make things worse, it started a drizzly rain when we had gone just far enough that it was closer to continue to the cabin than turn back for home.

Turp was the only one not carrying his supper with him. That is, not noticeably carrying it. So he helped the rest of us through the fences, and even picked up Runt Jones and set him down on the other side of a deep ditch that Jones would have had trouble jumping across with his hands full.

I suppose I’ll have to help you carry some of your stuff, he said to me.

No, thanks, I said. I`m managing fine. But the truth was that the bread wrapper had to be held on both ends to keep the sandwiches from falling out, and the milk carton was wedged under my arm so that it kept sloshing out a sad, pale brown color.

After we reached the cabin, damp and bedraggled, Turp set about building a fire in the fireplace to heat his beans. The wood was damp and it took him what seemed like hours to get the fire to burn. Turp munched happily at a carrot while the sickly flame expanded into a cheery blaze. All of us fellows were thinking how wonderful a can of hot beans would taste, and how limp and cold the sandwiches looked as we settled down