Just because I’m tired, tired.
When I was a kid, in grade school, we had an art project. I was maybe 7 or 8 years old. The project was to find a picture that meant something to us and we were going to laminate it (you also had to find something to laminate it on … thanks dad). I don’t remember what that laminating was, probably some highly toxic shit that I haphazardly brushed on with a 7 or 8 year old’s haphazard glee, maybe even ate some of, not concerned with the possibility of future kids with four arms or an extra eye. But an art project it was. I still remember my teacher being taken aback at my choice of photo. I couldn’t’ tell ya where I would have come about this, a newspaper clipping from years earlier, but I’ve always been a baseball guy and this picture meant a great deal to me then for some reason. I’m sure my teacher was concerned with the violence of it but to me it was just baseball, but when it went awry. Who doesn’t the love the staid when it gets a bit off course?
I think about it now only because, like I said, I’m tired, and I’m eating. There’s only so much you can deal with before a regress to when things were simple, when times weren’t as contentious, or when we weren’t as frightened, when mom and dad only argued, not over politics, but over how much dad would have in his pocket tomorrow and why couldn’t he just brown bag it like the kids (my dad always wanted a couple of extra bucks in his pocket, not for buying lunch, but just in case he came across someone who could use it)
I still have this “art” project, 50 or so years later. It serves as a sort of table at my crosslegged feet while I pathetically or not pathetically eat my dinner, sharing it with cats and a bit of TV I can never decide on. It is one of my greatest reminders.
(excuse the duct tape corner. This stuff that it was can get a bit stabby after all the years)
frankenberrysattic.com 