The Hat

She said

How do you like my hat?

It was a catastrophe

but I couldn’t tell her that.

I said

It’s perfect.  It’s so you.

I especially love the tartan trim

the fuzzy little lamb grazing on the brim.

She beamed

as I knew she would.

Sometimes a lie is best

when the truth is not so  good.

Her hat in fact looked like

a three story house with lots

of windows but no floor boards.

She was just a kid with room

to grow and had been

working on her hat for hours.

With needle and thread

she tacked little straw flowers

In places where real flowers

never could grow.

They were all in a row

and in between

she filled up the spaces

with faces of people

she never would know.

It was an act of contrition, that hat

looking very much like a Picasso.

An abstract confession of other people’s sins

she was too young to have any of her own.

Cubism gone astray, you might say

accidently bumping into Claude Monet.

And, judging by those people

dancing on the roof

cavorting with Chagall along the way.

It grew on me

and so much so

my lie became the truth.

Day by day her hat

spoke to me in Tongues

as she kept working

adding flying buttresses, French doors

a balcony with a railing

a velvet ladder with golden rungs

so you could climb to the top

and see in the distance

a sunset, an ocean

a ship sailing.

by Leo

Ring Them Bells

Christ in the House of Mary and Martha, 1620

Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez (June 6, 1599 - August 6, 1660)

The Complete Works

Ring them bells, ye heathen
From the city that dreams
Ring them bells from the sanctuaries
’Cross the valleys and streams
For they’re deep and they’re wide
And the world’s on its side
And time is running backwards
And so is the bride

Ring them bells St. Peter
Where the four winds blow
Ring them bells with an iron hand
So the people will know
Oh it’s rush hour now
On the wheel and the plow
And the sun is going down
Upon the sacred cow

Ring them bells Sweet Martha
For the poor man’s son
Ring them bells so the world will know
That God is one
Oh the shepherd is asleep
Where the willows weep
And the mountains are filled
With lost sheep

Ring them bells for the blind and the deaf
Ring them bells for all of us who are left
Ring them bells for the chosen few
Who will judge the many when the game is through
Ring them bells, for the time that flies
For the child that cries
When innocence dies

Ring them bells St. Catherine
From the top of the room
Ring them from the fortress
For the lilies that bloom
Oh the lines are long
And the fighting is strong
And they’re breaking down the distance
Between right and wrong

Copyright © 1989 by Special Rider Music

The Real Deal: Preface to Chronicles II

  

There’s a rumor going around, a ridiculous rumor concerning the circumstances surrounding my birth and I’d like to clear it up right now. What better place to do it than here in this preface to Chronicles II. I intentionally left this stuff out of Chronicles I because I didn’t want to give it any more power or credence than it already has, but now, looking back, I see that was a huge mistake. My father once told me, son he said, “Only through retrospect will it become clear that hindsight is definitely overrated.1 Whatever you do, don’t look back.2 ” My father was wrong. Sometimes you have to look back, everybody does. Sometimes that’s the only way things are going to make any sense.

 Putting off till tomorrow what can be done today 3 has always been my modus operandi, but every once in a while something of great import will raise its head and demand a more urgent approach. Then you have to lay down your usual m.o. and take the devil by the horns, 4 carpe diem, that sort of thing. This is one of those times. I used to be a firm believer that the best way to fight fire is with fire; 5 experience has taught me this is not always true, but in this case it just might be. I don’t know who started this crazy story. I have my suspicions, but they will have to remain just that until such time as I can say with absolute certainty who said what, when and where.6

I’ve given this matter a lot of thought and I’ve come to the conclusion that instead of feeding it to you piece meal and colored by my own perceptions, it would be better to give it to you straight up and verbatim, the way it came to me - scribbled on both sides of a small brown paper bag in an almost indecipherable hand writing and signed by "You Know Who".  I can tell you one thing; this person, this lunatic, should get an F in penmanship. How did this little brown bag come into my possession? Unfortunately, I can’t disclose that piece of information at this time without betraying a few key people whose loyalty and support have been constant throughout my career. Here it is. Just read it. You be the judge.

Regarding: The true identity of Bob

The real Bob, the real creative genius, is none other than a gifted dwarf named boB, that’s right, no typo; a gifted dwarf, formally named “Little b-o-big B”, boB for short, who lives in a cramped and crappy studio apartment somewhere in New Orleans. boB has rarely, if ever, been seen by anyone other than the fake Bob and a handful of carnies since 1946 when his heartless mother abandoned him to run off with the bearded woman leaving poor little boB in the care of an Hermaphrodite by the name of Big Mama Dick. The performing Bob, the fake Bob, pays for the real boB’s upkeep and sometimes when Little b-o-big B delivers something too good to be true on demand and under pressure, Fake Bob gives him a bonus.

boB lives and sleeps in a custom grand piano with special attachments; a roll-away cot and a little kitchenette with a two burner hot plate. The only time he leaves the piano is to write, compose, paint, shower and shave, use the toilet facilities and have phone sex. Bob and boB are exactly the same age, in fact, they were born on the same day of the same year at the same hour at St. Mary's Hospital in Hibbing, Minnesota. And, anecdotally, once, a maternity nurse brought Bob and boB to the wrong mothers who coincidentally shared the same last name and the same room in the hospital, Room 2B. Check it out. The mothers of course, recognized the mistake immediately; one said "This ain't my boB," the other said "this ain't my Bob neither" and without making a big tadoo, reversed the switcharoo. 

Six years later, Bob ran into boB at the carnival and they immediately became tight, each being drawn to the other magnetically by some strange and unknown charisma. Unfortunately, those were the days before the rights of "Little People" when dwarfism carried a stigma. Back then, heartless mothers of dwarfs, with non-existent maternal instincts, could simply abandon them and often did just that, dropping them off at the circus or the carnival knowing they would be raised and well cared for by the Society of Compassionate Freaks. In fact, when a little dwarf acted up, all a mother had to say was, “The carnival’s coming to town” and the poor little dwarf would shiver and shake and immediately act like a good little boy or girl. 

Young boB was tongue tied, he couldn’t sing worth a darn, but he could play Big Mama Dick’s piano like nobody’s business. He wrote a lot of music and lyrics for Mama’s private behind the curtain performances at the carnival. She had an amazing voice with tremendous range, one minute sounding like Madam Butterfly and the next like the Barber of Seville. This act pulled in big bucks and Mama Dick made sure boB got everything a young boy needed to be happy. A sweet little bicycle, plenty of good food, nice clothes, anything his heart desired. Sometimes when young Bob came to visit young boB, the two would run off together to ride bikes along the railroad tracks, climb trees, jump cricks; and sometimes they would just hang out at the carnival and eat french fries with vinegar or shoot craps with the Human Pincushion, the Fat Lady, the Rubber Man and the Sword Swallower. 

When Little b-o-big B was about 17, Mama Dick died by electrocuting herself accidentally by sticking a butter knife into the toaster to get out her bread. It was then that Fake Bob dreamed up a scheme to steal his little dwarf buddy away from the carnies and both of them took a greyhound to New Orleans where Bob found boB a place to live, and that’s when the deal went down. They drew up a contract, signed it in blood. Bob went on the road with his guitar and harmonica and a suitcase full of songs that boB wrote. And that’s the way it’s been ever since. Bob in the limelight and boB in a stinky apartment down in New Orleans 

 Signed, You Know Who

And just so I can beat all those evil mofos (who go on and on about my so-called plagiarism) at their own game, I’m including notations of every line or phrase I “steal” during the course of writing this 2nd book of Chronicles.

1 In retrospect it becomes clear that hindsight is definitely overrated! (Alfred E. Neuman, Mad Magazine) 
2 Don’t Look Back (She Belongs To Me, Bringing It All Back Home, Bob Dylan) 
3 Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today" (Thomas Jefferson) 
4 Pauline wasn't happy and took the bull by the horns by demanding a raise from her boss. (Sheila from wiki-quotes) 
5 Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire (Shakespeare in King John, 1595) 
6 Who's on first, What's on second, I Don't Know's on third. (Bud Abbot of Abbot and Costello) 

Leo

How Far From Stull To ........?

My grandfather's handwriting on this photo.

A wonderful day in Stull.

Little Nancy Jane in the foreground was my mother's baby sister. Directly behind her are my mom's brothers, Richard (L) and Allen (R). In the rear are my grandmother Lil, mom's sister Mary, and my grandfather Ira holding baby Donald. The only one alive today is Mary, 90 years old and living somewhere in Indiana. Nancy Jane and Richard both died this summer.  Donald died ten years ago, Allen's been dead for twenty.   There's more of my mother's family, the older children of Lil and Ira, who were not in Stull that day: Gerald, Ira, Paul, Ruth (Mom), Jean and Bernard.  These were no longer living at home in 1939.  

Four years after this picture was taken the entire family, including the ones not in the above picture, left the mountains and relocated to a government housing project, following and encouraged by my parents who made the exodus two years earlier .  My father told me he was first on the list for a house in the project and got first choice out of the 250 houses available.  He chose 444 because it was a nice little bungalow with two big trees in the front and a rolling hill in the back which led to the tree lined  Muckinipattis .

A 43-acre golf course became Glendale Heights.

The 9-hole Glendale golf course opened around 1929 and operated until 1941 when the Federal government expropriated Glendale for government wartime housing. With the Lend Lease Program in full swing then, local housing was at a premium and houses began to be built on the golf course in late 1941.

 

(within Wyoming County, State of Pennsylvania)

The straight-line distance from Stull to:

Tunkhannock, which is the Seat of Wyoming County, lies 11 miles [17.7 km] to the Northeast.

If you could walk a straight line from Stull to Tunkhannock, with an average speed of 2.2 miles [3.5 km] per hour, it would take five to six hours to make the trip. A horse and buggy averaging 3.2 miles [5.1 km] per hour would take nearly four hours.

Harrisburg, which is the State Capital of Pennsylvania, lies 89 miles [143.2 km] to the South Southwest. Driving, with an average speed of 63 miles [101.4 km] per hour, would take less than two hours, a buggy would take most of three days and walking would take 5 days.

The White House (Washington, DC) is 180 miles [289.7 km] to the South Southwest. Driving would take a little over three hours, a buggy would take 7 days and walking would take 11 days.

The shortest distance to Jerusalem (specifically the Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock) is 5,752 miles [9,256.9 km] and it lies to the Northeast.

The distance to Mecca (specifically the Ka'bah - or Kaaba) is 6,465 miles [10,404.4 km] and it lies to the East Northeast.


The distance to the Vatican is 4,341 miles [6,986.2 km] and it lies to the East Northeast.

The not so straight-line distance from Stull to Glenolden is: 169 miles

Oh Mary Don't You Weep

Three Marys at the Tomb

  William Adolphe Bouguereau