franksolich wants a primitive for Christmas

[franksolich]

franksolich wants a primitive for Christmas.  “You were a real hit at Thanksgiving,” the neighbor’s wife said when she came over this morning.  Usually I see the neighbor’s wife about half a dozen times a week, but she’s been busy.

“They’re still talking about it at the nursing home.”

I figured, I said, although I dunno why.  There had been fourteen of us there, three of whom were from the local nursing home.  They weren’t “bring-in”s for the holiday, just to be kind to ancients, but friends of the hostess and host, contemporaries of theirs.

Fortunately, out the fourteen, franksolich was not the only young one there.  Much to my surprise--and relief--when I’d showed up, there was a niece of the hostess there too.  She’s about 40 years old, Nancy Reagan-sized, lives in another county.  Her husband had to work Thanksgiving, and so she’d packed off their children to the grandparents, and come here to help her ancient aunt.

I was awed at the sensitivity of these people (remember, I don’t know them that well); for fourteen people, there were two tables, the niece at one and myself at the other.  The niece had the mumblers and no-eye-contacters and incoherents (incoherent to me, because of deafness), while I got all the animated ancients.

I sat between the hostess and the retired banker’s wife, the award-winning gardener, and also at this table were Grumpy, the retired banker who wears his polyester pants hiked up to his midriff, the host, the guy who’d been a maitre d’ on the Santa Fe Super Chief during the 1960s, and a long-ago retired school teacher.

I dunno what they found so interesting about franksolich, because I let them do most of the talking.  Grumpy spent a great deal of time and care explaining to me why the farm policies of Dwight Eisenhower had been a disaster for farmers, a subject which engrossed me as much as it engrossed him.  He even managed to come across as undismissive, even warm.

The retired maitre d’, who unfortunately worked the Super Chief after its heyday, rather than than during it, because he couldn’t talk about Hollywood stars riding the train, filled me in on labor problems.  Apparently whenever a white guy was hired as porter or waiter, the union squawked, because they looked at such positions as for their own, not for white guys.

This had been in the 1960s, as early as the 1950s, when such jobs in fact were highly sought-after and well-paid.  He said the whole train went downhill after the Santa Fe combined the all-coach El Capitan with the all-sleeping-car Super Chief, and the coach-class passengers were always trying to get into his dining car, when they already had a top-of-the-line dining car of their own.

(The Super Chief-El Capitan of course evaporated with the foundation of Amtrak in 1971.)

I commented to the neighbor’s wife there were some photographs of the absent guest, mostly black-and-whites taken during the 1960s, much like those of mine.  The absent guest of course is only six weeks older than myself, and I noticed a great many similarities, although he seemed a much friendlier, genial, kid than I’d been.  I wasn’t shown any pictures of him past his eighth-grade graduation, which apparently was about the time he started doing drugs.

“You know, I really would’ve liked to see him,” I said.  “Especially given the way the elections turned out, I really need some assurance that there’s justice in this world.  Of course, there’s justice ultimately with God, but it’d be nice to see a little bit of it in this world, people paying the wages of sloth and greed and decadence and escapism.”

I’d been interested in meeting this primitive, who apparently is now like a waterbed mattress and about as sensate, for scientific purposes of comparison.  We’re the same age, from similar socio-economic backgrounds, and I’d like to see what franksolich would look like, if franksolich had turned out a primitive.

But that hadn’t been possible, the primitive joining us, because the medicals at the nuthouse up in South Dakota had said he was in no shape to travel, even with professionals accompanying him (for which my hostess, the primitive’s aunt, had apparently offered to pay--she’d wanted to see him one last time, before his guardianship is signed over from her to the hard-pressed taxpayers of South Dakota, his enormous trust-fund having been depleted the past thirty years).

The neighbor’s wife had to rush somewhere else, but before leaving, she asked me what I wanted for Christmas.  I told her that all I want for Christmas is a primitive.   

[BlueStateSaint]

I told her that all I want for Christmas is a primitive.

This sounds like a song in the making . . .

"All I want for Christmas is a primitive feast, . . . "

Could someone take over?

[Gina]

"All I want for Christmas is a primitive feast, . . . "

"Nadin's a beast....
at this primitive feast"

[Randy]

Look out, Frank is looking to be like Michonne on The Walking Dead.

[franksolich]

Look out, Frank is looking to be like Michonne on The Walking Dead.

Okay, so I nadined "The Walking Dead;" it's apparently some television series.

But in my defense, the fact in real life is that while decent and civilized people know who and what franksolich is, Democrats, liberals, and primitives tend to get confused--Hell, even scared at times--because franksolich is a phenomenon they just can't figure out.

They don't like dealing with things they can't figure out.

In real life, I could drive Atman nuts in.....less than a minute.  Absolutely raving nuts.

<<done it before.

[BlueStateSaint]

In real life, I could drive Atman nuts in.....less than a minute.  Absolutely raving nuts.

<<done it before.

.

Well, then . . .

Drive

Him

Nuts!  (Think Name That Tune.)

[Skul]

As Coach is want to say, I've been a bit discombobulated as to why he wished to subject himself to the shinanigans of a primitive.
After several beers, it finally dawned on me.
My mind is now at peace. 

[Randy]

Frank in the hood with Atman and Stinky on the chains with jaws and arms removed for safety. 

[franksolich]

Frank in the hood with Atman and Stinky on the chains with jaws and arms removed for safety.

Actually, the sparkling old dude is the one primitive I've wanted the most to meet in real life.

The sparkling old dude is a raconteur, a great story-teller, and it'd be interesting, listening to his reminiscences of personalities he knew, or knows, in organized crime, in the Navy, in the food service industry.

He's probably dealt with some colorful people, and it'd be fascinating learning about them.

[franksolich]

The neighbor came over this past evening about 9:30, the bar in town being boring, bringing with him his older brother and a friend.  They were kind of, uh, sauced, and there was more out in the refrigerators in the garage to get even more sauced on.  I don't drink myself, but if it's something that rocks one's chair, rows one's boat, pushes one's buttons, it's perfectly okay to do so here.

In fact, this is exactly where people come when they want to drink outside the sight of their wives; there's three refrigerators out in the garage, and amply stocked.  The only downside to it is that one has to bear the company of franksolich, who's pretty boring, and oftentimes detached from the company.

That, I could never figure out--it's been a mystery to me since childhood--just because I'm around doesn't mean one has to converse with me, get me engaged in idle chitchattery; I'm perfectly okay with others gabbing away while I do my own thing.  But I guess to hearing people, if it moves, it's expected to talk.

The neighbor's older brother, who thinks I'm a little strange despite all evidence to the contrary, was drunk enough to be friendly.  He thinks franksolich is strange because I don't hunt or fish (even though I'm not against it; in fact, I encourage it), don't know how to use firearms (even though I'm not against them; in fact, I encourage others to learn how to use them, and to have them), have the habit of "recklessly" walking into awkward situations (which is unavoidable if one is deaf; otherwise one would just sit there, walking into nothing at all), am a "city boy," a dude, who gets uptight about things that bother others not at all, and a nocturnal habit of mine.

He asked about my plans to get a primitive for Christmas.

It'd been like only six hours or so, since I'd confessed to the neighbor's wife that all I wanted for Christmas is a primitive, but this is a small place, and word gets around fast. 

I don't think it goes by word-of-mouth; ever since a little lad, I've been convinced that hearing people pick up information by osmosis, rather than actually hearing, absorbing information as it flies through the air.  They seem to know things without having been told them.

It makes me jump up-and-down, getting red-white-and-blue in the face, because if I need to know something, I have to ask.  And most of the time, the query's either not answered, or if answered, I don't grasp it.   

Yes, I told him, I was looking for a primitive for Christmas, preferably one about my own age and social, cultural, academic, and economic background; someone born and raised in conditions similar with my own, so I could see what I would be like today, if I'd turned out a primitive.

He thought that was rather weird, because most people want "things" for Christmas.

I reminded him I've always had everything I needed, and to me, experiences are far more interesting than things.

They left about three in the morning, the neighbor's brother now even more convinced that franksolich is an odd bird.

Whatever; one can't help being what one naturally is.

[franksolich]

“Well, now she’s invited you over for Christmas dinner,” the neighbor’s wife said this morning, when we both got back from church.

“How’s that going to go with your wanting a primitive for Christmas?”

I said I’d been taken aback by the invitation, especially since I’d spent Thanksgiving there, and I really don’t know these people all that well.  It’d been an okay time, but these people are just acquaintances, not close friends.

“But then when she said they do it on Christmas Eve--a sacrilege, but whatever--I said sure, I’ll be there, because that’s not Christmas dinner, and still gives me a chance to have Christmas with a primitive.

“I could never figure out doing Christmas on Christmas Eve, and refuse to do it myself; next thing you know, people are going to do Christmas on Christmas Eve Eve, December 23, and then December 22, and then December 21, and inevitably they’ll end up doing Christmas on the Fourth of July.

“I first noticed this disturbing trend when I was a kid, and some kids were opening up Christmas presents on Christmas Eve, not Christmas morning.

“No way.  Christmas is December 25, no other time.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“Hey boss, you’re going to get a special Christmas present,” the property caretaker said at noon, when he was over here looking for something he couldn’t find; a tool of some sort.

“From you?” I asked; “you know all I ever want is cat-litter, and you’ve always given me six twenty-pound bags of it every Christmas.  It’s much appreciated, and don’t stop that.”

I always ask for cat-litter for Christmas.  It isn’t a trivial or nonsensical request; in fact, such a gift makes perfect sense.  When the snow’s laying 42 inches thick on the ground, and a 40 mph breeze is flowing, and the thermometer reads ten degrees, and ooops, I’m out of cat-litter…..well, if there’s lots of it stacked up in the garage, I don’t have to worry about it.

The gift to franksolich is that I don’t have to go out in that weather.  It’s a pretty good gift.

“Although,” I added, “this year, I want a primitive for Christmas.”

“Don’t worry about what the wife and I are getting you, boss,” the caretaker said; “this isn’t going to be from us.”

The caretaker’s wife is the biggest gossip in town--bless her heart, as she’s also very kind--and had found out that my hostess for Thanksgiving had sent something down to a jeweler in Omaha, to be all spiffed up, so as to be presentable to me on Christmas Eve.

“Oh no,” I said, turning white.  “I can’t accept it.”

- - - - - - - - - -

During the Thanksgiving fete, my hostess had shown me her collection of old music boxes; I counted 47 of them, and she hadn’t shown me all of them.

Unbeknownst to my hostess, I have an utter fascination with music boxes, as they’re my only real link to the world of music.  Other times, other places, I’ve been transfixed for hours with even just a single music box, playing it over and over and over again as I held it under my chin, or against a cheek, or pressed on the forehead, or jammed against an elbow or knee-cap.

For hours.  Over and over and over again.

I’m actually and truly hearing--“hearing” without the quotation marks--music.

I’ve never gotten tired of it, but one has to admit hearing Brahms’ Lullaby repeatedly for four hours is not a “constructive” use of one’s time.  If in the presence of even just four or five music boxes, I can waste eight or nine hours, just hearing.

I suppose many might laugh--especially considering franksolich is a fully-grown mature adult macho male--but if one’s deaf, one takes sound any way one can take it.

- - - - - - - - - -

Among the music boxes, all of them antiquities from the Victorian era, was one that one of her ancestors had brought from civilized, settled Ohio to raw, unbroken Nebraska during the late 1870s.  It wasn’t the fanciest or most-intricate one she had (in fact, it’s a rather ordinary-looking music box, apparently made in 1866 by “Samuel Troll“), but it was the music that attracted me.

It was a minuet by Andre Joseph Exaudet, a particular piece that reminds me of my mother.

I’d admired it most of all, and it took robust and severe self-discipline to keep from ignoring all else, and sitting on the side of the bed for hours, listening to it.

“Well, I’d like you to have it,” my hostess said, startling me.

I’d dismissed it, changing the subject as if I hadn’t understood what she’d just said.

“Well, boss,” the caretaker said.  “It looks like you got a problem here.”

[franksolich]

Late on Sunday afternoon, two people came over here to work on their motor vehicles; a guy with his pick-up truck and a woman with her sedan.  They’ve been here many times the past several years, and I was long ago told their names, but didn’t grasp them, and have been too embarrassed to ask again.

There’s lots of people who come here to work on their motor vehicles, rather than doing it at home, for the same reason the neighbor’s wife cooks her Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s turkeys in the kitchen here rather than at her own home.

There’s plenty of room, it’s all clean, and whatever one needs is out here.

The guy, who was putting down a lot of beer while working on his truck, got done first and left.

I went out and talked with the woman, who was changing the oil in her car, and was just about done.

We exchanged pleasantries and small-talk; she works in a dental office in the big city; married to a truck driver, mother of three elementary-school-aged children.  She knows automotive mechanics from having been raised on a farm over in the next county.  About 40 years old, blonde, petite, although possessive of some muscle-power.

She mentioned she’d heard I was looking for a primitive for Christmas.  “I don’t know why you want to bother with such people,” she said; “from all I’ve heard, they’ve been bothering you considerably ever since you came out here to live, abusing your hospitality and generosity and all that.”

Now, out in the real world amongst real people, Skins’s island and the primitives are little-known, or if known, little heeded.

However, up here on the roof of Nebraska, the eastern slope of the Sandhills, franksolich has done a reasonably good job of publicizing Skins’s island and the primitives.  Most people around here aren’t into habituating message boards on the internet, but even they’re aware of Skins’s island and the primitives, if even only second-hand.

A few have actually ventured over to Skins’s island, but not for the long-term; just a casual curiosity once in a while.  Those who have, insist Hate isn’t their cup of tea.  Others have expressed wonderment that creatures such as the primitives exist.

But generally, overall, most ignore Skins’s island and the primitives.  However, when franksolich talks of them, they immediately know what he’s talking about.

So she knew what I was talking about; what primitives are.

“They’re such depraved people, I don’t see how you can be so fascinated by them.”

I reminded her it’s purely an academic study and analysis of them, much like the late anthropologist Margaret Mead, professor to George Bush at Yale, studied other groups of people.

“But there’s problems with it,” I admitted, “studying primitives only on the internet.  One gets a better grasp of them examining them in real life. 

“And the problem here is, there’s damned few, if any, primitives around here.

“The closest one is a big guy down in Bellevue, and that’s a little over two hours away.

“He loathes and detests me, but his wife poor dear Marta loves me.

“There’s one down in Kearney, a little bit more of a distance, a primitive who has problems sitting on the commode, and another one out in North Platte, but we’re talking some serious gasoline money here.

“And my study’s become more specialized.  I used to observe any and all primitives--primitives of all ages and genders and localities--but I’m now looking around for a primitive the same age as I am, with a similar socio-economic-cultural background, to find out what makes us different, and to discern how I’d turn out, if I’d turned out a primitive.

“Right now, there’s only one available on Skins’s island who meets these standards, some guy in eastern Connecticut.  It’s uncanny, how similar our backgrounds are.  The only differences are that he has thinning blond hair, while I’ve got luxuriant dark brown hair. 

“And he’s turned out a loser, while I haven’t.

“I’m curious to find out what makes the difference.”

[franksolich]

On Tuesday afternoon, when I returned home, there was a strange car, a grey sedan, in the front yard.  I noticed it had no license plates, but put that thought aside as I went up the front porch.

Sitting on the front porch, waiting, was a guest from the past summer, Italianate Jesus.

It hasn’t happened often while I’ve lived here, but once in a while someone who’s stayed here before comes back.

“Oh,” I said; “His High Holiness and Perfect Being the Bagwam Maharishi Rawalpindi Thiruvananthapura Yogi.

“How’s things with the Bagwam these days?”

Italianate Jesus, who looks like Christ--even the hair’s the same--if Christ had been born in Calabria rather than Bethlehem, had been here in mid-August, part of a gypsy crew who went around to small fairs during the summer selling Esty-like trinkets and dubious home-made concoctions (and some 0bama-worship stuff), who’d camped down at the river while hustling at the local county fair.

He was the right-hand man of the leader of the group, Rhinestone Santa.

This group was from a commune out in Oregon, dedicated to organic living and worship of the Bagwam, a grossly fat and greasy Hindu charlatan who sported with nubile young hippychicks in a luxurious mansion on the grounds of the commune--surrounded by barbed-wire and a few security guards--while his followers lived in crude decrepit sheds and barracks, and worked at hand-cultivating crops when they weren’t out on the road peddling junk for the support and greater glory of His High Holiness the Bagwam.

They’d stayed here about two weeks, and as they hadn’t caused any problems--a sensation and much local gossip yes, but problems no--and so I wasn’t too put out by the reappearance of one of their number.

Italianate Jesus ignored my query about His Holiness, and asked if he could camp here a day while he “sorted things out in” his “head.”

After ascertaining he was solo, nobody else with him, I instead suggested he could stay in the house.  It’s been unseasonably warm this autumn, and the weather pleasant, but still, it gets cold at night.  I decided he could use one of the bedrooms in the unheated and usually not-used annex to the house; despite the austere quarters, it was better than what he was used to.

I showed Italianate Jesus his room, and then mentioned I’d just dropped by here to pick something up, and had to head west, to meet the business partner.  The business partner lives 130 miles west of here, and we were meeting halfway, so I’d be gone, I guessed, about three hours, maybe four.

And so in the meantime, he was supposed to make himself at home; he’s been here before.

- - - - - - - - - -

I left, and it was dark when I got back, the business partner and I having a great deal more than expected to discuss.  When I came inside the house, Italianate Jesus was nowhere to be found, although from the looks of the bedroom where I’d put him, he was in fact going to spend the night.

When I went out to the back porch, I noticed there was a campfire burning over by the river, the site of the hippycamp of so much local fame, or notoriety.

Italianate Jesus was probably down there, mediating or contemplating of whatever it is cultists do.  He was obviously in a state of great mental disorder and distress, and so it was best to leave him be.

So I turned on the light illuminating the back porch, so he wouldn’t have to walk the distance in total darkness, when he was done.  And then I went to bed.

- - - - - - - - - -

When I got up in the morning and got dressed, I went into the kitchen, finding Italianate Jesus working over the stove, fixing something.  He announced it was breakfast for both of us.

I winced, but I hoped it didn’t show. 

After all, I credit my health to that I eat only things I prepare myself, or which are prepared by people I know well; everything from their real name and background to their credit report and sexual habits and family tree and driving record, and where their hands have last been.

This was what I call “glop;” I don’t make it any special habit to have “vegetarian” supplies in the pantry, but Italianate Jesus had made do with what was there.

Pea soup isn’t on my list of culinary delights, and for breakfast, but since I don’t stock onions here, it was safe for me to gingerly spoon up a few sips, enough to show I’d partaken, and was hungry no more.

- - - - - - - - - -

Italianate Jesus is of short stature, probably 5’10” or so, slight in build, swarthy of skin, and with a large scar running from his left eye down to where his jaws interlock.  Probably about 40 years old, I guessed, and the scar a result of a long-ago knife-fight with another mafiosi, perhaps in Bridgeport, Connecticut or one of the suburbs of Baltimore.

I was going to ask him how the other cultists were getting along when suddenly he began flowing with details, talking a mile a minute, so fast I could barely understand.

He said it’d been a lousy summer for sales, and that the Bagwam back in Oregon was not pleased.  So as to keep His High Holiness placated, and jack up the size of post office money orders sent, the group had taken to petty theft and fencing the goods at pawnbrokeries. 

Somewhere in Texas, three of them had gotten caught, and tossed into the local pokey.  Italianate Jesus assumed Rhinestone Santa had contacted the Bagwam, asking for permission to keep some of the latest sales-receipts to bail them out, but the Bagwam had said “**** them,” and to go on with the show without them.

He didn’t know that for sure, but assumed that’s what happened, because he’d seen it happen to other people, other places, other times.

So Italianate Jesus, the chubby lad, and the deaf one were stranded when they were set loose ten days later, nowhere to go.  He didn’t know what’d happened to the chubby lad or the deaf one, as they all three took of their separate ways.  He was here, and they were only God knows where.

- - - - - - - - - -

Then suddenly Italianate Jesus’s eyes grew as big as saucers, a frantic look in his gaze, and he reached across the table to put his hand on my hand.

“They’re after me,” he explained; “they’re after me, and I have to get away.”

I looked at him blankly.

I’d assumed the car was stolen, and with this revelation blurted out, that he meant law-enforcement was after him.  It made sense.

But no; as Italianate Jesus rambled on and on, myself catching perhaps only a fourth of what he was saying, it became obvious he was talking about someone else trying to run him down.

My jaw dropped as he finally put it explicitly, that “enforcers” of the Bagwam were after him, because he “knew too much.”

I wanted to snort in derision, but God held me back.

It’s very common among those absenting themselves from a cult to lapse into unreal paranoia; and it’s even been observed among primitives leaving, or being tossed off, Skins’s island. 

And so I didn’t bother asking him why “they” were “after him,” as I already knew it was an assumption based upon his temporary mental disorder.

However, I assured him that what goes on in the Bagwam’s happy hippy farm is common knowledge, not “secret information.”  Weak-minded people seduced by an alleged Messiah, who then exploits them until they’re no use any more.

What’s always freaked me, though, is that such Messiahs never seem to have any aesthetic qualities; they’re usually ugly beings who probably stink a great deal, possessive of at least a couple of really grotesque physical features, and are dismissive of concerns other than their own.

I dunno; perhaps it’s their voice, or what they say, but I wouldn’t know anything about that.

But one’s eyes should be used as much as one’s ears.

“Everybody knows that members work in fields from sun-up until sun-down performing labor-intensive agriculture, and before hitting the sack at night, they’re given a bowl of gruel, its ingredients stolen from grocery-store and restaurant dumpsters.  And the clothes are pilfered out of clothing-donation boxes near thrift-stores.

“And while the Bagwam and similar Messiahs live in Streisandian luxury and opulence, the members live in galvanized-metal sheds or run-down barns.

“If a member gets sick or becomes an expense in some other way, the member’s ditched somewhere, minus any resources and identification, for the cops to pick up and send to the emergency room at a hospital.

“That, you’ve said so yourself, and the deaf one had illuminated me about it last summer, the first time all you guys were here.

“And while out on the road selling trinkets, members dine at soup lines, free kitchens, and city missions.

“If the trinket market’s not so lucrative, then members shoplift, snatch purses, and do other petty theft, to keep sending those post office money orders to the Bagwam, so as to keep His High Holiness happy.

“As one of the chants say, ‘The Bagwam’s Glory is our food, our clothes, our shelter, our all.’

“Everybody already knows this goes on, and most of us remain mystified why some people are so damned stupid.  It’s true that probably the sexual practices of the happy hippy farm are exaggerated, but generally most sane people have a pretty good idea of what’s happening.

“I don’t think you have anything to fear; I don’t think you’re harboring any dangerous secrets the Bagwam fears you might reveal.”

All that chitter-chatter however didn’t reassure him; Italianate Jesus was sure “they” were after him, which is how he’d ended up here.  But he couldn’t stay here, because Rhinestone Santa, one of the Bagwam’s most trusted lieutenants, knows of this place.  So he’d just paused here, on his way to northern Minnesota or upper Michigan, or maybe even Canada.

I was inwardly relieved he didn’t anticipate staying here any length of time, but my Christian charity and compassion reminded me Italianate Jesus was stressed out and badly needed some time to collect himself, so I suggested he stay one further day and night, to get all rested up.

He wasn’t enthusiastic about that idea; he was sure Rhinestone Santa and other “enforcers” of the Bagwam were already just now in the next county to the south, working their way up here, to find him.

However, I finally prevailed upon him to stay at least one more night, and if any mischief was afoot, all I had to do was pick up the telephone, and even without giving explanation, this place within minutes would be surrounded by firearmed farmers and townsmen, at the ready to protect franksolich and what franksolich needed protected.

So Italianate Jesus stayed one more night, but when I got up this morning, he was gone.

Before leaving, he’d kindly put the leftover pea-soup in the crockpot, apparently meant for breakfast for me.

[Chris_]

Vegetarian pea soup?  When I make pea soup, I put bacon and ham in it.

[dandi]

Will primitives burn for a long time? If so, I want a primitive for Christmas too, to use as a Yule log.

[BlueStateSaint]

Will primitives burn for a long time? If so, I want a primitive for Christmas too, to use as a Yule log.

You'll have to fill out the 3,000-page Environmental Impact Statement first . . .







. . . in triplicate.  Handwritten.

[franksolich]

Vegetarian pea soup?  When I make pea soup, I put bacon and ham in it.

It was glop.  Fresh peas, barley, brown rice, and water.

So much for the culinary talents of the Italianate.

[franksolich]

Will primitives burn for a long time? If so, I want a primitive for Christmas too, to use as a Yule log.

Oh now.

I had a discussion with the neighbor's wife about this just before lunch time.

It's a comparative academic study, to find a primitive the same age and with a background similar with mine, to discern why the primitive turned out a primitive, while franksolich turned out okay; what I'd be like if I'd turned out a primitive.

It fascinates me, how people ostensibly the same can have different fates.

The neighbor's wife insisted that surely the sad melancholy fates of my own siblings (excepting the younger brother) would give me illumination enough; they all (excepting the younger brother) became primitives, they all got caught up in the drug scene, they all suffered bad health, and they all died too young.

I told her yes, that was applicable, excepting in the chronological sense, and chronology's important here.

The older brothers and sisters were way older than their two youngest siblings.  The older brothers and sisters were partly raised in New York City, partly raised in small-town Nebraska.  The older brothers and sisters knew the parents when the parents were young.  In even the earliest memories of my younger brother and myself, our mother was grey-haired and our father was nearly bald; they were old and tired even when we were toddlers.

The older brothers and sisters grew up in the late 1940s and all during the 1950s, a time outside the experience of we younger two, who were born and raised wholly in small-town Nebraska.

So while examination of their evolution into primitivity is of some use, it'd be better to find a primitive nearer my own age and time, for purposes of comparison.

[vesta111]

This is quite the quest you have taken on Frank.

I do not know of any primitive your age that is still around.   You could invite a couple of single off duty cops to dinner and 3 or 4 older street people for dinner and have them escorted out after the meal and your curiosity appeased.

You may be surprised at how much you have in common with these people, just a throw of the dice or Lady luck both good and bad placed you and them in different worlds.

Some say  " There by the grace God, go I " and it is true.   The road to life is not a straight one, there are many paths branching out that people take.  Sort of the old two doors, one has the Lady and one has has the Tiger.

What we are not told is the Lady may eat you all up and the Tiger become your friend.
 

[Wineslob]

Ya know, I'll take one too. I've always wanted to beat a hippie with a baseball bat.

[franksolich]

Ya know, I'll take one too. I've always wanted to beat a hippie with a baseball bat.

But it's much more interesting to see an old hippie after he's spent some decades indulging in self-destructive habits, so no need to beat him at all.

I dunno; maybe I'm weird, but I get Great Satisfaction out of seeing justice doled out in this world, rather than having to wait until the next.

[franksolich]

Much to my surprise, the property caretaker and two of his friends showed up here early this evening, to put down some beer.  Apparently there‘s some sort of meeting at the VFW Club in town, and the bar was closed.

It was a surprise, but it was fine by me.  It can get lonely out here…..at times.

These were all guys in their mid-60s, all three of them having served honorably in the failed war for the liberation of Vietnam.  They sat around in the dining room, drinking and smoking and playing dominoes while I did my own thing.

When it was getting about nine o’clock, and they were readying to go home, the caretaker mentioned to me that I’d had a visitor here recently.

Yes, of course I had, Italianate Jesus, who was now gone.

But as nobody had been here the past three days, until this same day, I wondered how he’d possibly know; after all, I’m out in the middle of nowhere, miles and miles from anybody else.

“Boss, you just don’t know,” the caretaker said; “because you’re not looking to see who’s around.

“The whole town knows one of those hippies was here, and some were even hoping they could show up Saturday night to watch the sextivities down by the river; we all need something to cheer us up, after our dismal football season.”

- - - - - - - - - -

Barely had that company left when new company arrived; the neighbor, the neighbor’s older brother, and two of their friends.  The bar in town had closed an hour early, at ten, but they weren’t quite finished drinking, and so came out here to finish the job.

The neighbor’s older brother is closer to my age, and at least on the surface we have a great deal more in common with each other, than franksolich does with the neighbor.  But still, at times, I seem to really annoy him, usually after he’s been drinking.

But oddly, if I need something I can’t get myself, or do myself, he’s usually the first in line to help.

He thinks I’m odd.  Now, the neighbor’s older brother is no backwoods peasant or provincial blue-city primitive; he’s no yokel.  He’s “only” (quotation marks sarcastic) a farmer, yes, but he was in the National Guard and has a master’s degree from the University of Minnesota.  He’s been around, and even spent a summer (his younger brother took care of his farm) two years ago on a Christian medical mission to western Africa, paying his own expenses.  He can speak two foreign languages fluently.

So surely he’s met all sorts of people, and so franksolich should be well within the range of “normal“ to him.

But still, he thinks I‘m odd, despite much evidence to the contrary.

I suspect I annoy him because of what he sees as contradictions.  For example, I don’t know how to use a firearm, which seems a prerequisite for machissimo around here.  But then on the other hand it seems I acquired sterling credentials in machissimo by my “staring down” primitives pointing a gun at my stomach, twice the past two years.

(That wasn’t really what happened; in the first instance I had no idea someone was aiming a handgun at me--it was captured on camera--and my nonchalant unrealizing reaction caused the primitive to panic, running away.  In the second instance, I saw the sawed-off shotgun within inches of my stomach, but before I could react, that primitive ran away.  [Both were later caught; in the first instance, I‘d been a customer at a convenience store, and in the second I‘d apparently unwittingly interrupted a drug deal.]

(But since it’s useful for public relations, I don’t bother setting the record straight.)

Or for another example, here where hunting, fishing, and camping are imperative for one’s male credentials, while I’m an enthusiastic advocate of such things--for other people--I don’t do any of it myself.  I went hunting, fishing, and camping with the older brothers, who were then teenagers, when I was four years old.  I was so bored I resolved to never do it again, and haven’t. 

Or for a third example, here where “hard work” is much admired and respected, despite franksolich’s non-muscular physique, I’ve managed to out-endure the neighbor’s older brother many times.  I sweat like a pig when the temperature soars past 60 degrees, but when he’s so exhausted he’s actually trembling, I still have an hour or two left in me.

Perhaps that’s why I annoy him so; too many contradictions.  He thinks I’m an effete fairy, but knows I’m not, and he can’t reconcile the two.

[franksolich]

From an idiot, via e-mail:

I noticed you have a signiture pic which says you want a primitive for Christmas?

Are you referring to owning someone of darker complexion as a slave? Cause, if so, then that is quite despicable and should be repudiated immediately.

No, I'm not referring to that, but I wonder if this primitive's willing to spend Christmas in the Sandhills.

<<sets a good table, if has to.

[franksolich]

The neighbor’s wife dropped in this morning, hoping I’d care to go with her to the big city today to do some Christmas shopping.  I looked at her as if she were Bozo from Outer Space.

Yesterday afternoon, Thursday, I’d been in the big city myself, and after dropping off some work, had to go to Wal-Mart to pick up a couple of industrial-strength electrical air-purifiers.  I insulated the house too well for the winter, and what with five cats and my chain-smoking, well…..

I’m not fond of chemical aerosols, because they might harm the cats.

Given the floor-acreage here, I picked up two electric air-purifiers that allegedly are good for up to 1200 square feet each.  I haven’t set them up yet, because I’m waiting for the caretaker to tell me if they make noise, which might disturb the cats.

Hiking through the dense crowds at Wal-Mart for air-purifiers (predictably, located at the furthest reach of the store, miles away from the front door), four gallons of milk, an ink-cartridge for the computer printer, and a new rubber plug for the bathtub had been an ordeal; I don’t want to do it again for a long time.

Despite that I had to wander over several square miles--I’ve never been intimately acquainted with the floor layouts of gigantic stores--the only “impulse” purchase I made was a box of facial tissues.

I was told it was a “slow afternoon.”  It was true that when I’d arrived, I’d gotten a parking place just feet away from the front door, and when all done shopping, didn’t have to wait in line at a cash-register, but it seemed to me traffic was plenty heavy.  Hordes and hordes of people.

I was glad to get out of there.

I’d been compelled to go to Wal-Mart because last week, in pursuit of electrical air-purifiers, I’d drawn blank stares at both the hardware store in town, and another store in the big city.  I kept being directed to the humidifiers and dehumidifiers, but that wasn’t what I wanted.  I wanted appliances whose sole function is to purify the air, not all these other gimmicks.

The neighbor’s wife said she understood; after all, just about everybody knows franksolich prefers shopping at small places, even if the selection’s less and the prices higher.

When I get around to winning the Powerball lottery, the first person on the payroll’s going to be someone to do my talking-and-listening for me, so I don’t have to deal with that.  And the second person on the payroll’s going to be someone to do all my shopping for me, so that I never have to go inside a store again the rest of my life.

She inquired if I’d resolved anything concerning the Looming Dilemma; turning down a certain Christmas gift to be offered me Christmas Eve by someone who means well, but I don’t want to deal with it.

“You know,” I said, “even though it was one of the plainest, ordinariest music-boxes in her collection, given its maker and its antiquity, I’m sure it’s worth at least a couple hundred bucks, and that’s too much.

“I can’t take it.

“And so no, I haven’t yet figured out how to sensitively and graciously turn it down; I’ve been too preoccupied with finding a primitive for Christmas.”

[wasp69]

franksolich wants a primitive for Christmas. 

Ugh....  Make sure you get a gift receipt.