Similarchonicity

We start not far from the banks of the Ohio River in Evansville, Indiana. 

We are not ghost hunting.  But we haunt buildings haunted by ghosts.  The Willard library in Evansville has seen its share of the grey lady ghost.  The grey lady is thought to be Louise Carpenter, the daughter of the Libraries' founder Willard Carpenter.   But we know better.  Though Louise may have had an axe to grind against the Trustees of the library because old Willard gave a bunch of money to found the library in the 1870s and 1880s, the grey lady ghost is not malevolent and has a taste for Imperial Stout.

Some say the grey lady ghost was last seen lumbering up to the bar at the Tin Man brewery in Evansville.  But we saw her after that.

Further down the Ohio River the good townspeople in Owensboro, Kentucky  built a monument in 1999 to honor Air Force Colonel Charles E. Shelton, who was shot down over Laos in 1965.  Shelton apparently lived many years in captivity was finally declared dead by the U.S. Government in 1994.

Shelton had a wife.   Dorothy Marian Vollman Shelton married Charles in 1952 at age 17.   This grey lady did not give up hope in locating her husband until October 4, 1990, when she took her own life.   She is currently buried next to her husband's empty grave in Arlington National Cemetery.

Next to the Shelton monument in Owensboro is the National Bluegrass Museum which has had its own share of ghost siting's.   Visitors to the museum in 2014 allegedly saw the spirit of Bill Monroe still pursuing the high lonesome sound in tribute to the grey lady, all the while mentoring and encouraging new generations of pickers and players and just generally making himself beloved to plain folks.

But the grey lady now rests gratefully dead further down the Ohio at the Terrapin Hill Farm near Harrodsburg, Kentucky.  She and former Grateful Dead front man Jerry Garcia are buried in a sealed vault on the side of a great hill that doubles as an outdoor amphitheater and music festival venue.   The venue is the best kept secret on the festival music scene and is notorious for dosing unsuspecting patrons with hallucinogenic beer cocktails. 

   

Bronze Glory

For some reason I was awarded a bronze medal in Olympic Tennis.   The fact that I did not compete in the event and hadn't played tennis since high school had little to do with it.   Or did it?

I was shocked that I received the award.  I looked on the Internet to see my name associated with the medal and could find no evidence.   Odd--one would think that all Olympic winners would be posted on the Internet in this day and age.  After all, this is 2014.   I was at Sochi.   I didn't remember competing in the event, but I'm sure that someone told me that I finished third.

My doubts persisted.   Isn't tennis a summer Olympic event?   Wasn't Sochi the Winter Olympic games?  Surely something was amiss.

In any event, I clearly was not worthy of the award.   I must give it back.   Then I had a better idea.   I would sell the medal on Ebay.   And rather than keep the proceeds, I would donate them to charity.  Think of all the publicity I would receive!

So even before I had the medal in hand, I had already advertised it on Ebay.   The winner of the auction could donate the proceeds to the charity of their choice.   I relished the idea.  Think if Bill Gates found out about the auction?   He was already donating billions to his own foundation.   So he could buy the medal at the action for millions and then donate the winnings to his own charity.  Clearly this was a win win situation.   In fact, I better log on right now to Ebay to see how high the bidding had reached.   I knew the news channels would not be far behind.   I would be interviewed on national news about the great idea I had to raise money for charity.

But before I could check my listing on Ebay, I was celebrating with the other Olympic winners at a huge mansion.  All the winners were sitting down on chairs around a huge table.   Their hands were tied behind their backs for some reason.  And then, to my shock, a man with a gun came up behind each one of them and shot them in the head.  

Then the scene changed and I was no longer at the mansion.   In fact, I had woken up and was just staring at the walls.   Then, with nothing better to do, I decided I had to take a piss.  Then I went back to sleep.   Only this time I wasn't at the mansion anymore, but I was at a guest house at the bottom of the hill.   To this day, I'm not sure why I was there.   After all, I knew there were a bunch of dead people at the top of the hill.   The cops would not be far behind.   Why was I hanging around?  I should split.  But for some reason I didn't.   I stayed at the guest house and looked in the attic for a place to hide from the cops.   Or maybe it wasn't the cops I was hiding from.  Maybe the killer was out to get me as well.   In any event, I was hiding from something.   But I didn't end up in the attic.   Instead,  I was in a closet hiding with several old ladies.   We were all hiding behind a bunch of clothes.  Which was not a good idea.  For now there were kids in the room.   They were running around and some of them had even opened up the closet door and were rummaging around in the clothes where me and the old ladies were hiding.   One of the old ladies had a gun, and when one of the kids moved the clothes away and exposed where she was hiding she pulled the gun on the kid.   Which was not a good idea--for now the kid was running to his mother yelling about the people in the closet who had guns.  How did I ever get myself in such a mess?

Upside-Down

The first thing that happens in a panic attack is you think you're going to die. You think your heart is going to stop. You think you're going to have a stroke. You think blood is leaking into your brain. You think you can't remember.

Then there are the physical manifestations coinciding with the panic.     You feel your heart stopping. You feel faint. You feel your heart racing. You feel your blood constricted.  You can't breathe.

Your world turns upside down.  You feel an whelming disorientation.   You must run. You must get out.  

But it is too late for you this time.   This time the real thing is happening.   You feel a strange sensation that's not quite pain as the last strands connecting you to your body slip out and you begin to fall.  As you fall you begin to dissolve.     

The first response to death is denial.  You think that that this cannot be happening. You think there was so much more to do.  But down you go.    In a while you realize that it all came to this--this nothingness--this silliness.  But as you descend further you realize that it wouldn't of made any difference anyway. It all becomes this in the end.  

When you stop falling, you hear music.  But it's not a choir of angels.  Its your alarm clock playing your local radio station.   And yes, you have to go to work.  And no, it doesn't make any difference.

 

Rubberband Man

Eventually they are going to discover that deep within the recesses of every human being
is a large rubber band.

You don't believe me?

Sometime there is barely any tension on the band.  Other times the band is wound up very tight.

You still don't believe me?

I can prove it.  Sit very still.   Feel your breath going in an out of your belly.  

In a minute you will be able to feel the rubber band that runs the length of your abdomen. 

Who would have thought that deep inside we are just like a toy airplane, or a tin soldier that you can wind up, let go, and watch flop around all over the place?

However,  there is a problem.   Sometimes our circumstances prevent us from releasing our inner rubber band.   Like at work.   I mean, who would really dig if some day they walked into your office and saw you flopping around all over the place?  It happened to me one time in Edwardsville, and let me tell you it is not cool and does not promote confidence in your abilities as a professional.

Psychologists use words like anxiety, stress, panic attacks.   Psychiatrists dispense medications to expand the rubber band temporarily.  

But I think that you've never heard the sound like the Rubberband Man.  And...

You are bound to lose control when the Rubberband starts to jam.

For the dude is outta sight.

Everything he does, seems to come out right.

Once I went to hear him play in Gillette, Wyoming.   He used to work with my dad and the Posadas.   The Posadas were from Columbia I think.   They had Pong.   Accordingly, they were cooler than any other family in the neighborhood.   Juan Posada even had what was for a junior high boy the equivalent of porn.   I'm not sure what the magazine was, but it did show some dude performing cunniligus on a woman.   They even told me they used to have maids in South America.   Moreover, they believed in ghosts.   If you prayed to some saint, the saint would allegedly wake you up at the time you told them to.  Or some such nonsense.  

I remember hanging out in their basement.   With the Rubberband man spinning around.

 
Jazz is not dead.  It just smells funny.  Madison plays wing not point.  Mackenzie gets an attitude.  Sunshine day dream eclipses Jakes leg.  Nicotine butter and tea.  And brain stacks.  Rotary meetings. Negromaro, salento, and Italian wine.