An Evening with Grandma and Grandpa (A Parable)

The year: 2044. (This is important.)

The kitchen, as grandparents' kitchens are wont to be, is scented of chocolate chips and sweet oven-crispness. Grandma is wobbling about in her apron, cleaning up the crumbs and spills of young bakers. Grandpa sits at the table with said bakers, ages seven and nine. Grandpa looks tired, his chin in his hands, his elbows on the table.

"F#$%ing, A, Grandpa," says the seven-year-old. "These f#$@ing cookies are bangin'. Grandma," she yells over her shoulder, "you can bake your f#$@ing a#$ off, b#@ch!" 

Grandma sighs. "Thank you, dear." She drops a glass that shatters in the sink.

The nine-year-old grandson gets up and goes to the sink. "Sh#@! Are you alright, Grandma?"

Eulogy for an Old Drinking Buddy

I have lost a good and useful friend. He was a dark friend, no doubt. He wouldn't go everywhere with me. But where he showed up, he was effective -- even powerful; even intimidating.

Where would he go with me? Smokey taverns, for one. He was only comfortable around gentlemen. He tended to stay hidden when the ladies were around, but when the joke was among the boys, he was a bawdy card.

"McSorley's Bar," by John Sloan

He also was a fierce competitor on the sports field, but he didn't like the umpires and referees to see him. He was a gravelly whisper between me (the defender) and the fellow I was clashing with over the ball. He was right there with me if someone came all dust and high spikes into the base I was covering and gashed my shin.

Sometimes, he was my only companion in moments of lonely anger -- those times when I skinned my knuckles, reaching in to replace a car battery, for instance. Or he would rumble out under the roar of the band when a quarter-inch drumstick splinter lodged itself into my finger halfway through a song, when I couldn't stop to take it out.

He used to be a star on the screen, too. He'd deliver some pretty dramatic moments; one, in particular, shared with the legendary Clark Gable. But he's no presence of the screen anymore. He's but a wraith. He's a strand of hay in a haystack.