Coping Skills...!

Thrusting and parrying, measuring the length.

Violent or peaceful, depending on the game!

Withdrawal or attack, considering the strength;

Passive or aggressive; it’s resistance just the same.

Prejudice or alliance, decisions we have faced.

Immediately or never is the time to make a change.

Acceptance, rejection; it’s all a matter of taste.

Cleave to the familiar or cower from the strange.

Shouts and whispers around the conference table.

Smiling or pouting, whichever wins the most!

Tantrums or self-control; either, when you’re able.

Weaknesses and strengths all of us can boast.

Within or external; conflicts seen and felt;

Whether a dreamed fantasy or frightful realism.

Internally or outwardly, with which will things be dealt?

Coping with life using all of our mechanisms!

Pre-determined Destiny...!

Father, was that you reflected in your son’s eyes

or was his vision chemically impaired?

Were his failings directly related to your demise?

Was he acting as you would never have dared?

Mother, did you hear your daughter crying;

fearful of facing her womanhood alone?

Should she have withstood the heat of assuming?

As a young lady is often prone?

Father, was your image commonplace

and your vocal directive a resounding warning?

Did your fairy princess, attired in ribbons and lace

Cower at your parental scorning?

Mother, did you show your son that you are a lady

or clarify for him, his masculinity?

Did you capitulate that all women are not shady?

Tell him there is beauty, too, in his inner femininity?

Parents!  Are your children emotionally set;

outside influences defined and categorized?

By them, will this global society’s challenges be met?

Is their destiny not to be recognized?

Who Speaks for Me...?

From varied cities and hamlets they come

Suggesting that they will get things done

And make the necessary change

The absurdity of which is not just strange

But even more a profound untruth

Their sudden amnesia compelling proof

Intent seemed pure at its outset

Until they played and laid a bet

That change a cost they gladly paid

And now a player the game they played

Their place they had to pay a toll

Now both feet in too deep a hole

Alliance formed and lines decided

Of ease is this the vets they chided

Just go along the process reigns

And smile the riches a member gains

Fear not the lobby they all will call

And reap the riches they share with all

You are a player just do the bidding

Duplicity culpability is to well hidden

Your graft a drop piddling the amount

Small out of pants no off-shore account

A vote a waste a toll a time

You have no say in truth you mime

The deal long set the formality

A minion you stark reality

Behind the curtain quiet and cool

The puppet master you elected fool

A Habit-forming History...!

My wife and I confirm that history is habit-forming!  Sometimes it's poignant and as funny as hell, too!  She is from a small family and I have a big…no, I have a huge one!  Her immediate family consists of her parents, her brother and herself while mine includes my parents, my two brothers, my seven sisters and me!  Four, seated around the dinner table at her home compared to twelve rubbing shoulders and clearing space for elbows around mine!  That is the history and that has formed the habits!

See, my wife eats with an ease developed from a history of never feeling threatened about whether or not she would get enough, get the best part, or not get any! 

Me?  Well let me just say that with my father who, by virtue of his role (father and co-maker of all of us), station (head of household, breadwinner and protector) and stature (ramrod straight-backed, no-nonsense, senior NCO in the U.S. Army and veteran of 3 wars), automatically garnered a fair share of the groceries from my mother.  My mother; his wife, who dutifully and honorable doled out the lion’s share of dinner to him whether or not he requested it while also insuring she had enough to sustain herself before ever divvying out the balance to the offspring, then shared out the balance according, almost, to birth order compared to appetite. 

Imagine the portion of the eighth child (me), a walking, talking, eating machine who never thought that he was being fed to the levels prescribed by medicine, psychology or his bottomless pit of a stomach. Yes, back then, I ate like each meal was to be my last and I needed to eat it before someone older, bigger and stronger, snatched it from me and devoured it before my teary-eyed gaze. 

My mother, the magician, could prepare a meal for twelve as easily as if she were cooking for two.  She could conduct a symphony atop the stove with all burners adjusted to perfect temperatures for the contents of the pot above each while roasting, baking and broiling assorted stuff in the oven, below.  She always has been and continues to be amazing! 

A true fact that I relate to anyone who will listen is the skill my mother possessed as it pertains to the division of a single chicken; the structure of which suggests a breast, split in two, two thighs, two legs and two wings to total eight portions, if you don’t consider the bony back a piece!  Hint: they don’t sell backs at KFC. 

Ah, but they do at Christine’s (my mother) Kitchen!  And a wing has two parts, also.  And a breast, in half, can be again, halved!  Yes, thirteen pieces of chicken from a single yard bird.  I’m just glad I have seven sisters and not seven brothers.  I probably would have starved before I was six!

To my point of this writing; my wife suggests I can eat chicken and reconstruct the skeleton for scientific use when I am finished as there is nothing left except bones.  I tell her that my eating chicken is a habit born of history!  Whatever piece of chicken I was fortunate enough to receive at the dinner table of my father, was tasty, very much appreciated and consumed to the bone; as was any left on anyone else’s plate after they thought that they had had enough and was finished eating!  I am not, nor ever have I been, in the habit of leaving meat on bones!  When chicken is served at our house, now, my wife eats what she will and then passes the remainder to me for clean-up; I do my thing!  My wife has gotten used to my habit!  

Sometimes, Love Takes Time...!

Year One –

I saw her!

She was really young

and cute as could be!  She

...touched me!

Chills!  

I said. “Hey, you want to play?”

She said, “No”, at first.

Then she reversed; 

...we conversed.

Year Three –

Saw her quite a lot;

...at the office or

at our secret spot.

I played the peacock game… 

Preening!

Year Seven –

I wanted to change her name...

Call her mine!

all of her...even her mind. 

Divine!

And all of this would be;

...in good time.

Year Ten –

It’s been a while!

We love with style.

She’s now my Missus; we share

more than just kisses!

We live and love, together!

Forever!

A Physical Fit...!

     My wife and I get up at 5:30 a.m. on alternate mornings and go to the downtown YMCA to work out on the bevy of exercise machines they line up against the perimeter walls of the joint!  We are never alone and often have to relocate away from our favorite machines as someone has gotten to them before us.  Not to worry, they have plenty more to use and abuse my sleepy body.  Today was no different than any other day, there; I just wanted to pat myself on the back for getting up and going! 

     No, the real point of this writing is to expound on the conversation that we had while driving home, sweaty and chilly from working out on those torturous, robotic monsters call Elliptical machines.  See, our exchange, while initiated because of our efforts to maintain some semblance of a healthy regimen and lifestyle, quickly evolved into a discussion about the seasons, air quality and the lack there of, as well as, a recollection that going to the gym for exercise was an undertaking that, in days past, wasn’t even necessary. 

     Now understand; my wife has allergies that it could take me a while to list.  She is not especially athletic nor is she hell-bent on maintaining a ridiculously rigid lifestyle of abstinence from some of the good stuff like a mixed drink, something sweet after dinner or a meal with a higher calorie count. And me, I am even less so inclined than her! 

     I played high school and college football back in my day and jumped out of perfectly functioning aircraft as an airborne soldier some twenty-odd years ago. I have put a whole lot of miles on my feet, knees and hips so I know what being totally committed to a good health and physical fitness regimen is all about.  But I digress! 

     We started talking about how everything, anymore, is done inside and not outside, like it was for us growing up.  Children don’t play outside!  No one trusts enough to let the children rip and run, unsupervised, throughout the community, these days.  I can remember, when I was a kid, that I could get up on a weekend or summer day and eat breakfast, do the few chores I had been assigned to do and then go outside and roam the neighborhood and larger community until I exhausted myself.  I could forego going home for lunch or a snack and be gone from my parents’ house, all day, with the least concern about personal safety, being attacked or falling prey to human predators.  Neighborhoods weren’t fenced-in, walled-up or arm-guarded.  Exercise was something you did during gym class, at school, but your good health and physical fitness was due to the fact that you played outside; running, wrestling, playing every sort of ball game and obstacle-jumping game you could conjure up. 

     Games like Chase, Tag, Capture-the-Flag, Red Rover, Crack-the-Whip and Hide-and-go-Seek, all day and evening; sometimes into the early night, were how kids stayed fit.  Girls played Jump rope, Two Square, Hopscotch and Tetherball and still managed to stay prissy and not sweat.  The second-fasted runner in my neighborhood was a girl…I kid you not!

     Now, it’s video games, text-messaging, computer games and tweeting.  Sure, there are some physical activities that youngsters are involved in these days, but have you heard what it costs to belong to a Soccer League team, a Gymnastics or Cheer group, a Pop Warner football team or one of those AAU Summer Basketball leagues?  Since when should it cost a parent hundreds of dollars to enable a child to be in good health?  And then, there are those who think that recess and P.E. should be dropped from the schools’ curriculum.  Is there any wonder why we, as a nation, are rated as obese?  Wow!