Dreams Amid Weird Tasks

When I was a lad, my father took aim at a pigeon on our roof with his trusty BB gun. He fired and the pigeon came crashing down. He hit the poor thing right between the eyes. We few kids standing around, having just witnessed the fowl event, were all speechless. All my father was trying to do was to scare it away to keep it from shitting and nesting and doing whatever pigeons do on people’s roofs.

That old BB gun, a rifle really, shot copper BBs. I recall coming across it down in my aunt’s basement a few years back. One particular day I began wondering if it was still down there. It wasn’t. So I sent out a group text to my siblings asking if any of them might have it in their possession. I got the usual snide, mocking comments. No one had any idea where it might have gone. All I hoped was to enjoy using it again for some target practice.

Undeterred, I’m resolved to make a more thorough search of the basement…

In the meantime, my energies are focused on trying to build a shed. Now this project had been in my head for at least ten years. Recently, though, I was able to access four huge, sturdy shipping crates. They were free for the hauling and this find lit a shed-building fire beneath me.

After cleaning up an existing concrete slab I set these tall crates on end, side-by-side, two on each end, about ten feet apart. I set them up on cinder blocks, which made them seven feet tall, and together they were about eight feet wide. I had lots of lumber and plywood around that was scavenged over the years. So a rough plan began taking shape in my mind to cobble together this shed as best I could — and, of course, to do it as cheaply as possible. (Another factor in my mind was avoiding the buying of materials so as to eliminate the stupidity of mask-wearing in order to procure them.)

When I wasn’t trying to do shed calculations, my mind would sort of naturally return to more exotic thoughts, thoughts of sailing away to the South Sea Islands in the Pacific Ocean (the Kingdom-Island of Tonga in particular). Surely the remoteness there would be a welcome refuge from the techno-demonic, socio-political shit-show going on since President Trump made his tactical retreat last January.  

And yet such thoughts would predictably come crashing up against counter-thoughts of wife and family and wondering if and how they might figure-in to my get-away plan. In my opinion it is healthy to entertain a desire for peace and quiet, solitude and serenity — however that desire arises and whatever form it takes.

A few weeks ago my old woodworking job came back to me when the apprentice slot opened back up again. This coincided with my determination to embrace Anna von Rietziger’s American National repatriation plan that had recently been streamlined. And so I was back doing some woodworking with my friend, taking care of my elderly aunt a few days a week, and entertaining the usual exotic fantasies…and then some.

I had just sold my '80 MGB and had a few extra bucks to do some projects, like shed-building. And in a whirlwind I also decided to get my teeth in-order. This meant a trek westward to Cumberland, Maryland, to a new dentist, a “biological dentist.” And since I was going that way, I decided to keep going a bit further to Somerset, Pennsylvania. There were maintenance chores to be done up there.

So you see, there are lots of weird tasks percolating; a huge amalgam of thoughts, aspirations, pursuits, dreams and visions, are all coalescing together as Spring begins warming-up the air. Yes, I will be up in Somerset, PA to do some maintenance on the old family house there. And I've kept in touch with a local lass who helped inspire my last book. Part of the impetus of going there is to spend a little time getting to know her. And, lest any readers impute some dark, lustful motive to this seeming bit of deviltry, I will simply say in my defense that I like this woman, she likes me, and we’re up for some friendship, whether it’s an “emotional affair” or otherwise; either is dangerous, but then, I’ve always flirted with danger.

Whatever complications may arise from it, friendship is always worthwhile in my book (especially when some long-time “friends” had recently turned their backs on me for no real reason I was able to figure, other than they just didn’t seem to like me anymore).   

So life's good, in spite of welchers, wampum woes, and the witless, jay-walking, mask-wearing Puddleglums all over the place these days.

In a few hours I meet again with my new ozone therapy medical doctor whose intriguing interests have taken him beyond kinesiology. We'll see where his skills may take me. All I know is that I am loving the warmer weather as I emerge from the same ol’-same ol’ winter doldrums.

Yes, everything seems like “crabs and crumpets”, “fricasseed frogs and eel pie” — colorful phrases borrowed from my reading of The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, a thick, lovely adventure book.

Consequently, I’ll search for that old BB gun, get that shed built, whip this old body into shape, and engage in fix-up work, while fiddling away within some old and some new dreams, visions, and fantasies, all of which are worthwhile and stimulating. Pioneering and exploring is what I love best, all of which comes under the heading  “Weird Task Ministry.”

And this reminds me: interspersed among all of the above was my drafting (this week) of an appeal for my cousin Pat’s latest piece of legal bad luck, wherein he inadvertently passed a standing school bus and was hit by a $450 fine and a proposed, 60-day suspension of his driver’s license. I shot up to Somerset to file that appeal in another blitzkrieg mission of mercy.

So, if the mule don’t die and the crick don’t freeze, maybe a few things will get done around here (and elsewhere), in between slogging along in that same old rut.

I need dreams, don’t I? Don’t we all!

In the final analysis we human beans are creatures of “doing and being,” or as Miss Connie used to say on that old TV show, Romper Room — we should all strive to be good “Do-Bees.” Agreed!