I was going through some things today, in the Family Archives, finding certain relics for the nephews, when I came across a letter I had written in January 1982, in which I had described a.....dream.
The impetus for the dream, if I recall correctly, was my always-ongoing argument with physical perfectionists who bitched much about physical decay, but moral decay was okay with them.
I think they were vegetarian atheists.
The letter was written to a friend, although it was surreptitiously directed at his wife.
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However, one night recently I had a dream, where I was sitting at the end of a long table in a large room that was dark. The other end of the table, which seemed to stretch for miles, gradually faded into the darkness.
I was just stting there, minding my own business and at peace with the world, when suddenly my late younger brother popped into the chair next to me. He was dressed very much like a Japanese
samarai warrior, although puffing on one of those long-stemmed pipes favored by the old Dutch burghers. We chitchatted for a while--details too long to explain here--and towards the end, I asked him how one achieves Salvation and Redemption of the Eternal Soul, as he himself had obviously done.
Out of the darkness sprang dozens and scores and hundreds of marionettes--the Seven Dwarves, Santa Claus and his elves, Pinocchio and Gepetto, Sinbad and Ali Baba and the forty thieves, Robin Hood and his merry men, Henry Cabot Lodge, Hansel and Gretel, the entire Light Brigade, &c., &c., &c.--who danced and pranced along the table-top, their strings fading into the darkness above.
To the tune of what I assume is "Louie, Louie," and with Donald Duck leading, they sang:
Spurn we not the weak in flesh,
whom we seek to refresh.
There are no NO SMOKING signs in Heaven;
now, that's what we really call livin'--
Corruption of the body bothers us not,
but we fright when the Soul goes to rot
Those we send with all dispatch
down there to meet Old Patch.
The arrogant, the liar, the pompous ass,
the know-it-all, the speaker full of gas,
the green-eyed monster, the do-gooder, the vain,
those who in the neck are a pain,
the laggard, the slothful, the ne-er-try-hard,
the gossip, the nagger, the shrew,
and this whole motley crew,
the polluter,
the ravager,
the egotist run amok,
the purveyor of shoddy goods,
the dissipator of shoddy ideas,
the bore,
the boor,
the extortionist, the abortionist;
when they come and ring the bell
they're told to go straight to Hell.
Corruption of the body bothers us not,
but we fright when the Soul goes to rot.
Spurn we not the weak in flesh,
whom we seek to refresh.
There are no NO SMOKING sings in Heaven;
now, that's what we really call livin'--
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It actually goes on and on for 17 more stanzas (the letter itself is 11 pages long), but never mind.
