Bye-bye summer; Silver bullet, The moon from St. Paul

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_129ZFctDk

August

by George Bilgere

Just when you'd begun to feel

You could rely on the summer,

That each morning would deliver

The same mourning dove singing

From his station on the phone pole,

The same smell of bacon frying

Somewhere in the neighborhood,

The same sun burning off

The coastal fog by noon,

When you could reward yourself

For a good morning's work

With lunch at the same little seaside cafe

With its shaded deck and iced tea,

The day's routine finally down

Like an old song with minor variations,

There comes that morning when the light

Tilts ever so slightly on its track,

A cool gust out of nowhere

Whirlwinds a litter of dead grass

Across the sidewalk, the swimsuits

Are piled on the sale table,

And the back of your hand,

Which you thought you knew,

Has begun to look like an old leaf.

Or the back of someone else's hand.

"August" by George Bilgere, from The Good Kiss. © Akron, 2002.

^.^

Woody Allen
told this joke back in the 1970's;

"I was walking down the street
past this high rise hotel

when a crazed man threw
a Gideon bible out an upper window.
It hit me at high speed in the chest.

If it hadn't been for this silver bullet
I always carry in my breast pocket

that bible could have passed right through my heart!"

I, same age as Woody Allen (78),
had my silver pacemaker replaced
in the hospital last Friday.

There were no Gideon bibles around then
but in 2005 if it hadn't been for that
 pacemaker [and some related heart-work]

well, uh..........

The replacment was successful too.

^.^

Our pledge (updated)


We here at the Sewer Raccoon News
are common men

(and women);

we are not afraid to live underground

in less than savory environs

holding together an organ

set up for us by son Leland

now seven years ago.

We are maintaining

on an old computer.

(Not anymore!)

It, we, and the format of the SRN

are held together with clarinet reeds

and scotch tape.

(Not anymore!)

More modern methods of blogging

involve lots of pretty designs

and sometimes even falling snowflakes

with white on black background fields

but we are truly common men

of the Lower Crustacean species.

This is NOT an upper crust endeavor.

Feel at liberty to exercise

your delete button at any time.

It won't hurt us.

We shall keep on going

to the end

of something.

Fanfare for the Common Man

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvXYcQQD1Hc

or

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fK92hdp6u18


^.^

A picture of the moon
taken by former special agent
Robert Heeschen from his yard in St. Paul.

He got the shot with his Sony Cyber compact
with 80 power electronic zoom.

Bob held it against his fence, exhaled and held it
while he ever so lighfully and hopefully pushed the shutter.

Like Woody and me, is also 78 yrs old.




^.^

Choose Something Like a Star

(or a moon)

by Robert Frost

O Star (the fairest one in sight),
We grant your loftiness the right
To some obscurity of cloud—
It will not do to say of night,
Since dark is what brings out your light.
Some mystery becomes the proud.
But to be wholly taciturn
In your reserve is not allowed.
Say something to us we can learn
By heart and when alone repeat.
Say something! And it says, 'I burn.'
But say with what degree of heat.
Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade.
Use language we can comprehend.
Tell us what elements you blend.
It gives us strangely little aid,
But does tell something in the end.
And steadfast as Keats' Eremite,
Not even stooping from its sphere,
It asks a little of us here.
It asks of us a certain height,
 when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may choose something like a star
To stay our minds on and be staid.

"Choose Something Like a Star" by Robert Frost, from Collected Poems, Prose & Plays. © The Library of America, 1995


^.^

PS:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D59x6WeZ9t4