Moved again..

We’re in Oregon. Salem.

Lettuce.. June 2015

Accosted by Santa (Ret.) … a pome

Accosted by Santa (Ret.)

The other day while I was shopping for onions,
an elderly bearded man
on a motorized grocery cart for the disabled
hailed me from a distance.

He was wearing a Santa hat
and asked me if I was of “the Brotherhood of the Beard”.
Since I’ve been a greying barbudo for well over ten years
I said I guessed so and asked if he was collecting past dues.

He said that he wasn’t collecting,
but that he was a retired Santa
and used to work seasonally in Branson, Missouri
with a couple of hundred other Santas.
But since he had a hip replacement,
he was no longer an active Santa.

I mentioned my rotator cuff surgery at some length and asked him if he’d ever gone to Key West for the Hemingway Look-Alike Contest.
He had not heard of this.
I’m sure he didn’t know about the Robertson Davies Contest in Peterboro, Ontario
nor the Lev Tolstoy Contest in Я́сная Поля́на.

We parted in a jovial manner.
This was more than a trifle odd.
I thought he was a recruiter at first.

We’ve moved.

To OVERLAND PORK, KS.

flars

Finally in KCMO.

Buck has been here since mid-December..

acrylic

Here is a painting of his.

No trendy gossip, here. Move along.

I have no head-splitting, gut binding gossip. Sorry.

Feliz Navidad & Joyeux Noel & Frohe Wiehnachten

Kansas City

I’ll be standin’ on the corner
18th & Vine
I’ll be standin’ on the corner
18th & Vine
With my Kansas City baby
& a bottle of Kansas City wine…..

Oona’s gone to PDX.

Buck is lonesome. It’s a lot cooler out there. 78F vs. mid- to high- 90s here.

Accordions should be mandatory at all airports!

Here we are..

Buck & Oona

Oona is back from her rest cure in Baltimore, where the spiritual advisor prescribed deep breaths and barbecue eaten with feet elevated on the dashboard of a large, American-made sedan. Buck offered his Crown Vic and it worked okay, but turned out to be a bit shiny for the neighborhood.  Oona sighs and wraps a strand of her fine black hair around the broken pencil she has taken from the Tom & Jerry mug on Buck’s desk.

“He’s really not the contemplative type,” she says, glaring meaningfully at the portrait of L. Beau “Buck” Pickering on the wall above the landfill license.   “He chews like a walrus,” she adds.  “And he keeps asking if we have enough Tree Frog  in the cooler.”