“When Worlds Collide.” “Re-Membering.” “God’s Gestapo.”

All are possible titles for the blog I have written but not yet posted. It is still aging. To perfection? We all know better than that. Since it’s more like Kentucky moonshine than fine French wine, the process won’t take that long. So what is this here I am posting and you are apparently reading? A pre-blog? A brain leak? God knows that happens. More like Barney Fife pulling out his one bullet and shooting himself in the toe as he tries to take aim at the bad guys.

So it’s a foreword. No, it’s not a foreword since I, the writer of the piece to come, am writing it. Can’t write my own foreword, now can I? So it’s a prologue. Maybe. It could be…means to preface something with a prologue. Aw, that’s confusing. Let’s cut out the middleperson. Preface. Much better. I am going to introduce what is to come. It’s a preface for sure. But wait. This is different. Just a prologue to a preface with a foreword. C’mon. Stay with me. This is the fun part.

No, this is a warning. That’s it! This little introduction is indeed a warning. Really, The blog you will soon see posted is for me. Just me. They all are, really, but in this one I need to express thoughts that have clamored to percolate out of my brain now for many months. I welcome you to come along with me on this trail ride…if you have a hankerin’ I’d thankee kindly. Sorry. I’ve become prone to lapse into hillbilly/cowboy talk these days for no apparent reason. Please read, comment, and question the blog that is to come. I am not ashamed. At least yet. But I am not afraid, that’s for sure.

Funny and not so, I began this blog some two years ago with the idea of being funny. Sometimes I have prompted a chuckle…once in awhile in you and more times in my own crazy self. I like that. But more times, these musings have been much darker, most with double meanings, and very personal. Like today.

Of all things I have been and wanted to be, I had come to see myself as a writer. I am a writer. I yank off my glasses, and then tear open my shirt to reveal the golden pen on my tights and cape. Some have confirmed that and I appreciate them. Since junior high I have been consistently affirmed as a writer. In high school guys called me a “poemist” and asked me to write poems for them to give to their honey faces (I did but held back…you understand). I even managed to support my family by writing…granted it was advertising copy…the literary equivalent of breaking rocks…but my pen fed my family for more than ten years. And I have been published officially in real books a couple of times. Someday I hope to finish and publish fatherlyFIRE, my autobiography. That has come to appear impossible. I hate that.

I began my blog on the day I decided I was a writer. Clear away all else, and I saw myself as a writer. Today I say I am no longer a writer. And I’m contemplating the future of this blog. I don’t meet my own standard for that high label. So what am I? Here’s an example. At work today, I was asked to change a phrase about bolt assortments in our printed catalog from “comes in a plastic bag” to “comes in a plastic box.” The current nature of my job. Not allowed to go much beyond that. I don’t even know how to explain what I do and I am ashamed of it. Maybe I have no longer have any more to offer than a box over a bag. That may indeed be true. This is only one aspect of my horizon.

My overwhelming urge to be over-the-top sarcastic here is difficult to suppress. This is my life. A clear simple snapshot. So blasted futile. So disconnected. This is the pasture in which my still-rearing, kicking, and snorting left-handed Mensan/Scarecrow-from-the-Wizard-of-Oz brain must graze. Due to my own mistakes and bad choices, this is a life sentence. I am not a writer. I am not sure what I am. I merely exist. I have been symbolically beaten, humiliated, and re-branded from many directions. I am the pony trudging around the ring giving little kids rides with brainless motion day after day. I expect to simply die at my desk…no, my trough. It is a trough for I feed from it. I wish I could give kids rides. That would be something of value. I’m not asking for pity. Not even a little. I’m merely setting the stage for what is to come.

I told you this was a warning. The next blog topic in a few days is about remembering. Not as you might think about the word now. One of my MFAs (mentors from afar; people I respect but have never met) Ron Pelias, PhD, said, “what we decide to remember says who we are now” and “what we commemorate each day by the telling of our tales is our necessary history and our moral mandate.”

Scary and true. Did you get that first part? What I decide to remember does say who I am now. Let that simmer awhile. It’s profound. And I will tell the tale. It is my necessary history and moral mandate. Those things could not be more true. So in a few days, I will post a new blog. Read it or not, I am compelled to write it.

Hmmm. Maybe my son Jonathan will write a foreword for the post to come. Maybe he’ll share some thoughts, too. He’s been riding roundup write/right with me toward this particular little corral for some months now. I reckon his brand is just as prominent on these wild mustangs’ butts as mine. Yep. A proper foreword. A little uppity, but maybe just the lasso I need to grab that stallion. So pardners, I’ll look for you riding the fence line in a few days. Let’s both break free of the pony ring and meet up. Near sundown. See ya at the Long Branch. Sarsaparillas on me.

Happy Trails.

Buffaloed Bill (I’ll write something funny next time).