The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
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    WHEN I'M 64

    By Richard Day on Thu, 03/27/2014 - 5:36pm |

     

    I was thinking about the question “why”?

    My granddaughter is about to be two years of age in a couple of months and in a couple of months I shall be 64.

    WHEN I'M 64!

    So I have constructed a scenario where I might read to her from Homer or whatever without pix and without media!

    And she will not sit on my lap!

    Why do you like me?

    Well I have many reasons why I like you, but today I will give you five reasons why I like you!

    Five.

    Do you know five?

    Okay, so first of all, what is your name?

    My name is Noela.

    Okay, but what is your last name?

    I am Noela Day.

    Okay then, my name is also Day and you can call me Grampa Day!

    So, the first reason I like you is that you have the same last name as me!

    Two, can you say 'two'?

    Two!

    Okay then, you have a nice presentation.

    You are always clean, you always smell good and you always have clean clothes.

    And that is because your mama and daddy make sure of this condition.

    Can you say condition?

    Condition!

    All righty then!

    Three, you have a good soul.

    You greeted all of my friends with a smile and with a high hand and with a nice greeting whether or not that person was in a wheel chair, or whether or not that person was overweight or whether that person was 'ugly' or whether that person was of another race or another creed or another shape.

    You have a good soul and I admonish you to never lose that wondrous soul!

    Four, you are excited about life.

    Do not ever lose that excitation!

    Always be amazed at life.

    Be amazed at a duck or a frog or a dog or a cat or a flower.

    I mean never stop yourself from being amazed at life itself.

    Others will attempt to stop you at your amazement.

    Oh everybody knows about ducks and frogs and cats and dogs and flowers.

    No they do not.

    Nobody knows anything! Do not condescend to that level of consciousness!

    There are people who have studied ducks for decades and those people know more about life and are more excited about life during their entire lifetimes than the people who eschew ducks.

    Five, you are happy about just being alive.

    Do not ever lose that happiness.

    Oh you are an idiot.

    You should not let yourself go like that.

    No.

    Always let yourself go like that.

    Always!

    Okay, so that is five reasons I like you! Now to the story.

    SING O

     

    goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans. Many a brave soul did it send hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs and vultures, for so were the counsels of Jove fulfilled from the day on which the son of Atreus, king of men, and great Achilles, first fell out with one another. 

    And which of the gods was it that set them on to quarrel? It was the son of Jove and Leto; for he was angry with the king and sent a pestilence upon the host to plague the people, because the son of Atreus had dishonoured Chryses his priest. Now Chryses had come to the ships of the Achaeans to free his daughter, and had brought with him a great ransom: moreover he bore in his hand the sceptre of Apollo wreathed with a suppliant's wreath and he besought the Achaeans, but most of all the two sons of Atreus, who were their chiefs. 

    "Sons of Atreus," he cried, "and all other Achaeans, may the gods who dwell in Olympus grant you to sack the city of Priam, and to reach your homes in safety; but free my daughter, and accept a ransom for her, in reverence to Apollo, son of Jove." 

    On this the rest of the Achaeans with one voice were for respecting the priest and taking the ransom that he offered; but not so Agamemnon, who spoke fiercely to him and sent him roughly away. "Old man," said he, "let me not find you tarrying about our ships, nor yet coming hereafter. Your sceptre of the god and your wreath shall profit you nothing. I will not free her. She shall grow old in my house at Argos far from her own home, busying herself with her loom and visiting my couch; so go, and do not provoke me or it shall be the worse for you." 
     

     

     

    http://classics.mit.edu/Homer/iliad.1.i.html

    This is my dream.

    I would begin with the Iliad and then transcend to the Odyssey and then go to Genesis and then Geoffrey of Monmouth and then to Mallory by way of Chaucer and then.....

    But....

    I am not in charge and I have no ability to be available to teach my wondrous grandchild....

    I just pine for a chance to do this and I pine to give my baby's baby my thoughts about life.

    How best to impart these thoughts to someone so far away?

    The end

    for now

     

     

    (I attempted to post last nite, but there was some screw up.)

    Anyway, in two months I am 64.

    wow!

    Comments

    They are certainly wonderful when they are babies.  She is a lucky little girl. 


    by trkingmomoe on Thu, 03/27/2014 - 8:32pm

    You know she is a lucky girl!

    That is for sure.

    Hell her mommy is a teacher and her daddy loves her to death.

    Yeah she is a lucky girl who loves mommy and daddy.

    Can you imagine that at 1.5 she is in a school and already learns some mime language?

    Hell, in the first grade when I was six, I recall looking at the alphabet on the top of the blackboard and wondering:

    How in the hell will I ever figure this out?

    hahahahahahha

    Do you know what the conflict was between the parents?

    Mama gets paid for four days a week teaching at this school but the couple still has to pay to let their baby attend?

    I don't understand it, really.

    But daddy dictated that Noela would only attend two days a week at this 'school' and daddy's Mama would attend to the child two days a week. hahahahahah

    My son was like 11 and turned to me and asked if he was a mama's boy...

    And I then I went into some scenario involving Alexander the Great and McArthur and ten other mama's boys. hahahahah

    And he just said:

    Okay then!

    hahahahahah

    And me?

    You cannot go to school before you are three for chrissakes?

    But what do I know.

    Hell, the little bugger will probably do better on the SATS than I ever did!

    Thank God for Grandma. 

    hahahahah


    by Richard Day on Sat, 03/29/2014 - 1:47am

    I taught the little ones to express themselves with hand signs.  They mostly settle on ones that they make up.  But if you watch a baby closely he will tell you things with his hands. I had read about baby sign language, that made me aware of it.  I had no instructions on how to do it.  We just did our own thing. 


    by trkingmomoe on Wed, 04/02/2014 - 1:16pm

    I love it when you do that NOELAtalk.  Makes me smile even when I know some of it is an inside story.  Ha!


    by Ramona on Thu, 03/27/2014 - 9:11pm

    I have no life.

    Except when I think of this little bugger. hahahahaha

    You know, she is loved by everybody and even at this nothing age she has all these affectations. hahahah

    I probably might see her in the next thirty days.

    I cannot keep from thinking about her.

    Two.

    Hell, I recall one memory when I was two.

    Most of my memories begin at four.

    There is a brave new world out there.

    But these two parents are working very hard to let this bugger express herself and I am amazed.

    Anyway, this little angel has parents who are far advanced from me.

    It is nice to just sit back and love some peeps.

    And not judge!


    by Richard Day on Sat, 03/29/2014 - 1:53am