THE MOST MYSTIFYING YEAR EVER

I try to stay up on what's important in life that doesn't include old ladies and failed relationships. Im becoming very disillusioned about old anything but money and cadillacs because for heavens sake or some body's, I don't want an old man. They are the pits being sick when they are young and have a headache. You'd like to just sock 'em in the head regardless of how much you may think you love them because they are just such children, sick or not. It used to bother me I couldn't get the hang of artificial means with which to pleasure myself alone but, I need a couple hundred pounds to hang on to. So what I didn't need for anything else, became a mainstay in my life. At 73 I haven't lost the urge, I don't have the energy so that can be gracefully moved to a back burner until some spectacular drug or cure comes along that pumps oxygen into your lungs at number 7.

This is the year of the preparation for 2012 whatever that means and, whatever that means has filled up the book shelves and DVD organizers for a lot of people that don't know any more about it than I do, but have the energy to write out their best guesses in the typed form then add front and back cover with kundalini spines all over it. According to them we will think our way out of this dimension into a new universe. Then there are the ''world will be destroyed in a magnetic pole reversal or a real pole reversal", (shades of the flood) and Atlantis rises again with only a few rich folks making the adjustment in the water world subs Hollywood thought up. But hey they have been on point before so let's not count them out, just keep your eyes open for any place building large all purpose submarines. Maybe those occupants weren't able to stop making money long enough to hone their subconscious into moving them through the universe so they caught the next best ride. Don't laugh, there was a picture of a sub behind a broken panel in one of Egypts buildings and dated 3200BC. This ain't the first rodeo kids!

REGRETS

I often look at my life and think, I only have one or two regrets but listening to Luther sing, Dance with My Father" I realized I had another one, just now realized in that instance of the title. I remembered being in our house on 31st and Stevens, and my fathers shoes looking dirty before I stepped on them then, forgetting all about them as they began to move with the music he'd turned on. That's where I learned all the steps to all the dances I would commit to memory when I grew up. That's where I learned about timing, pause and any number of things that make you move your body to music, knowing you will want to dance forever.

Along the window sill of life, many things rise up in that window you sit by and with me, his absence from my life was always looming in the distance while it rained down my life's window. It made me angry, not to have him in my life, always being late to pick me up, always drunk, always loving me regardless of how he was, or how ugly I could perform because of it.

Then one day I quit thinking of myself and thought of him and because I was a grown ass woman, I realized he was the best father he could be, just not what I needed and listening to Luther wanting to dance with his Father again, I felt my heart give itself a small squeeze and at that moment, I too, wanted to dance with my Father again, but this time tell him, I loved him.

WHEN DO YOU STOP BEING A MOTHER?

The phone rang and an exasperated daughter asked me, "When do you stop being a Mother?" I told her, " I don't know, Baby, you just called me!" We both laughed because that was a classic example of parentings misunderstood directions. We forget these kids didn't come with a laundry label so you would know how to keep the kid looking it's best and understanding the ground rules. I only babysat twice so what I knew about taking care of kids was zilch. Besides, I became a photographers model as soon as I stepped one long leg out the door at fifteen. She evidently thought it over and understood her plight, not sure if I did so........... when DO you quit being Mom?

And where is the period when you go off and fly around the world or jump in your RV and take in some lakes along the highway, or your and a friend take one of those tours to the Canyon? I missed that somehow because this same daughter that was asking the question kept finding me in Arizona a couple times a year and at first I was a bit surprised since she wasn't too hot on talking to me as a child. Now Im sitting here in my native birthplace and she's acting like my Mother and I've been relegated to the child position again. Missed the whole thing I did. But I'm not going to complain or start any uprising. She hasn't made me go find her a switch yet!

LITTLE BOY NOISES

There are few boys in our family. When I had my son there were three young and two older. Not having boys around to care for, their mannerisms, sounds and words are long forgotten from their playground antics and now I'm a mother and have to guide him in the ways of my world. Well when he first came into my world, after having one girl that spoke excessively and the other that had the conversation of an autistic mute, I was ill prepared for the many sounds that issued form the short stocky boy rambling on the floor running Tonka trucks down the carpet and around the legs of chairs and blocks of wood he'd piled up.

The sounds changed from roars to hisses and clucks. Sounds of explosions as a toy was dropped from on high to blow up the pile of blocks. There were wild sounds at times when he simply sat in a chair eating his breakfast, or on the toilet showing me what a big boy he was. Beside myself with worry he might be retarded I asked my Mother what did she think. "Cheri", she said with a soft smile, "he's making little boy noises." Since then Ive paid attention to sounds that come from men, and find there isnt much of a change from the explosives sounds they hurled as kids from the description of how a long pass was caught by the running back as he plowed into the opposing team. But dont take my word for it, watch a group of them enjoying a football game and listen to them running through all the "little boy noises".

R E D

Willis made the only film I ever walked out on, (Hudson Hawk)but was never detered from continuing to let him show me a good time and boy does he ever. It was 3PM on a work day and the show was full. We hollered and laughed, we clapped and whistled. Hot damn he was at it again but this time with pros that stole the show ever other scene. Mirren with heavy artillery and almost apologetic for not being able to quite "cut the killing habit", a hoot and holler while still being the perfect lady enjoying a little girl time with Mary Louise who just thinks its all one grand time, finally. Bruce and the rest are at their laid back best while Malcovich should get at least a mention at an Oscar for just being nuts. He was genius.
Morgan Freeman continues to deliver regardless of the role and Bruce is totally believable playing the reluctant retiree flirting with a girl in the pension office, as he is beating his young nemesis half to death. In the end they garner your respect if for nothing else than bejng able to deliver on cue and show you why they are older and still a box office draw. They know what the hell they're doing. Want to laugh and have a good time? Go see the movie, you cant lose with this one.

BELIEFS

One seldom investigates their beliefs. All have them and I'd venture to say 80% of them are unproven yet everyday of our lives are dictated by them, our unproven beliefs. Generally speaking we believe in an invisible entity we've never seen, with powers of unequaled voracity and believe the God to be male, merciful and kind while millions are killed, burned, starved, wars rage and hundreds of thousands are washed away in tidal waves and volcano mud buries them in their cities and churches where some have taken refuge. Yet we personally believe He has answers to this rampant killing He does and has listened to our individual prayers and guided us through our lives.

Our soldiers believe if they pray to God they will be victorious in their quests to kill and maim their enemies, who are praying on the other side of the DMZ for victory in killing and maiming their enemies, you know, on the other side of the DMZ. Now we want our God to play favorites, that little game of ours since childhood learned from the adults that really rule our lives.

We are dragged to church and told that God is a white man sitting on an enormous throne in a toga. He has a gazillion angels that just stand around singing about how wonderful he is. In our child's mind we think of the hungry kids in China that were starving so we had to eat all our breakfast, and wondered why God didn't send some of those angels just standing around, down to feed those kids.

No matter what happens to us, it was meant to be. We are told God likes us to suffer and has a plan for us. We learn when we die we will lie quietly in our graves until Jesus comes for us, though nobody seems to know why there are still ghosts walking around, you know the kind they tell us don't exist, where are they going? And why does there have to be a war before Jesus can come and rescue us? Why is there so much blood shedding? Cant He just speak peace into the world? 'They told me He could. He spoke the world and Universe into being, so why can't he just say to all the waring nations, "Go home and feed your poor". He could do that.

"YOU KNOW DAT'S RIGHT"

All through my life they have been there, two or three non descriptive old guys, laughing at a shared joke, or some forgotten memory stuck in one of their minds, some woman, some dice game, some war. A party not intended to include some nosey girl, or uninterested passerby, just something to laugh about, between them. You'd find them on a bench, a stoop, the old barbershop or like Mr. Bean, propped on a stool in a favorite cafe, or maybe their laughing about that old drunk that hit JuJu and got run out of Fat Larry's Juke Joint that night down in Tupelo Mississippi.

I didnt realize how important two guys like this were, until I saw this picture and began remembering that part of my life I left out a while back. The familiar part that let you know how you still loved your youth when you could turn your nose up at them and now realizing you didnt see many like them anymore. Like all the old familiar things, they too were passing. Drifting away on memory clouds that came less and less these days.

They'd gotten up that morning, went through their ritual of preparing to meet each other like it was going to a job, when in a way it was. The job to remember to meet a friend that might soon go away too. To put on garments that could be taken off if it got too hot or buttoned up in a chill. They called it layering now, back in the day it was just dressing smart for crazy weather. One opened the door and let the dog out, the other glanced at an empty chair in the kitchen table, then slowly closed the door and headed for breakfast. After they'd had enough coffee and the chill had left the air, it was bench time. That would take up the better part of the day, until it was time to go back home, feeling good about your life, your friend, your dog. A couple of things he said he remembered, but really didn't because you had to direct the conversation in a way to move it along when his friend got too hung up trying to remember the color of a button or some other name.

One put his cap on the peg by the door and glanced at the other chair, he smiled, betcha he remembered her. His friend opened his back door and called the dog, Pearly to come on in the house. He had named it after that sassy, big butt girl in Houston that time he left Mississippi and smiled, betcha he remembered that! His old lady never knew. Now, time to fix dinner, just for one. They each smiled remembering their day, ready to do it all again tomorrow, them two old guys.