moving my mouth

Not many singers in my herd. Myself I was always musically impaired. I was tone deaf, and could never find the beat. In Kindergarten I played the sticks and later I was told to just mouth the worlds.

Remember those assemblies, they would be like for Christmas and flag days or whatever, and the Ks would come on and then the firsts and seconds and so on? Some grownup would be playing the piano and we would all get up from our seats in a line and mount those little stairs in the front, and we’d set up in some kind of formation with the shorts in the front and the talls in the back. Sometimes we would put on some sort of play but mostly we would be singing, except for me, I would be moving my mouth.

When I was subbing I loved the assemblies. Well less work for me, but I loved to see the little ones all in a row and some of them so earnest like they were on Broadway and some of them facing the wrong way or picking their noses and the teacher behind the curtain just furious at them but there was nothing she could do.

I never sang at work, but when I was in southern Illinois, when I was by myself I sometimes recited poetry. One of my English teachers at the U of I made the class memorize poetry, which I thought was just so unfair, but I still remember most of the poems while I remember precious little else I learned in college. In fact, now that I think about it, didn’t Mrs Stark make us make us memorize passages from Shakespeare? Anyway sometimes when I was reciting my poetry I would bump into one of my fellow janitors, but it’s always good if other people think you are crazy.

I like Oren’s quote. Kind of reminds me of what they used to say about Newt, that he had a hundred ideas before breakfast, something like that, but of course most all of Newt’s ideas were stupid, but you never had a chance to catch him in one because he would be off to the next one, and always talking that smooth patter, like a guy wearing a Panama hat, just stepped off some river gambling boat, tossing a silver dollar in the air and catching it expertly.

Well I have to say the reps have a line up of candidates that could well outdo the lineup they had four years ago. Unfortunately for me, they have limited the number of debates, but they should be doozies. On my side, we have Hillary, and I have to say I am not thrilled. I am afraid that people will be so sick of looking at her by November that they will vote for anybody else.

I was just listening on the radio, some guy in Minnesota wanted to rebrand the whole area from Michigan to the Dakotas, as just plain The North, as sort of a way to promote it, you know the ruggedness, the hardworkingness, all that crap. Well I don’t think that’s going to sell after these last two winters.

I did always think there was something socialistic about the north. People up there have to stick together, while people in south can run around any which way they want.