Vocabcident

Uh Oh! Are Cathleen & Ben
on the verge of a snaccident?

This term is a recent addition to my vocabulary,
introduced to me by Ben when he was recovering
from jetlag and sent me the following text:

"Oops, had a napcident and just slept for five hours."

Apparently, one can have not just accidents
but any number of -cidents!
E.g., Impulse Buy = Shopcident!
In the course of writing a lot and typing too quickly, I commit numerous typos, resulting in vocabcidents. For example, I accidentally typed "Sortry" when apologizing to my brother Aaron for clogging up his email with some duplicate messages (a dupliccident?).

In response to my apology, Aaron emailed back:
"Sortry" . . . Does that mean you're sorta sorry??? LOL!!!

*****************

Another time, instead of typing signification,
I accidentally omitted the "a," thus yielding significtion.
I was on the verge of correcting my voccabcident but had second thoughts. After all, signi - fiction sounds like an important genre of fiction that we need more of! My friend Len -- artist, poet, and professor -- responded that I should leave it as is, on the basis that "We always need more words!"

So Significtion it is!

Artistic Flair

I asked my sister Peggy if she remembered
taking this Bleak Mid - Winter photo from the back porch
of our house in Clover Meadows (St. Charles County, Missouri)
probably 50 years ago, in January 1968.

She said: I kind of remember this picture.
The tilted camera was my attempt at artistic flair!

**********************************

A few others shared their memories as well:
Our little brother Aaron: "Definitely remember this view. Beyond the telephone pole was our baseball diamond. But who left the tracks in the snow????"

Our little sister Diane: "Aaron, it was probably a dog or a deer?"

Our neighbor Debbie: "That sure brings back childhood memories . . . from back when there were hardly any other houses around!

And I reminded Aaron: "Remember when you fired your BB Gun into that telephone pole and the BB ricocheted right into the lens of your glasses? Whew! Those glasses saved your eyesight! It's the moral of the BB Gun Christmas Story movie, as everyone keeps telling Ralphie: "You'll put your eye out!"

Playing in the backyard ~ 1968
Diane, Kitti, Aaron, Bruce

20 years later ~ Summer 1988
Diane, with her children Aaron & Jessica,
showing Uncle Gerry the garden.

This photo was taken, looking in the same direction as Peg's artistic winter scene. The telephone pole is gone, but would be somewhere right behind Gerry. The old farmhouse has been replaced by a large contemporary barn. Even this was 30 years ago, so no doubt a current picture would differ yet again.

Diane's son Aaron (named after his Uncle Aaron; the shy one above, peeking out from behind his mom) shared a perspective from the second generation of kids to grow up in the same house:

"The view there has changed quite a bit. That side is about the same but just down Central School Rd is Home Depot, Chick-fil-A, Starbucks, and a million other places. We have some friends who live on the other side of Central School Rd, in the neighborhood next to Rolling Meadows. It’s funny to be over there visiting, so close to where I spent the first 8 years of my life (1982 - 1990)."

Cubs

Cardinals Fans Aaron & Pam

World Series Thoughts from my brother Aaron, "A True Statesman"
With Responses from my brother Bruce
Aaron: I'll probably catch hell from many in Cardinals' Nation for saying this, but Go Cubs!! Congratulations to Cubs fans, the city of Chicago and the Cubs organization for making it to your first World Series in 71 years!!! As a life-long Cardinals fan I can't imagine how they must be feeling right now. I mean, an entire generation of Cubs fans have come and gone just waiting and hoping for this day to come. As Cardinals fans we've become spoiled with play-off baseball and World Series appearances (and victories!!), so when they don't make it, it doesn't seem right. The worst drought they've experienced in my lifetime was the 1970s. Actually a little longer; 1969-1981 with no post-season baseball. So at 55 years old, I can't imagine what it would be like to have never seen the Cardinals play in a World Series game. Unfathomable!!! So Congratulations & Go Cubs!!!!

Well, whether they beat the Indians or not, I'm happy for them.

After thinking about it, the Cardinals' longest World Series appearance drought in the past 55 years was 15 years; 1988-2003. They made it into the post-season four times, but not to the World Series. Still, it doesn't compare to 71 years!!!

I wouldn't go so far as to start putting Cubs stickers all over, but since the Cardinals didn't make the playoffs this year, yeah, I'll root for the Cubs.

Bruce: Five years ago I had just witnessed the fifth Cardinals' World Series championship of my lifetime. This was the last paragraph of my five-year FB memory this morning:

"The older I get...the more seasons that pass without the Cubs winning a pennant...the more I realize that this could easily be the last Cardinals' World Series win I ever see. And if that happens, I can't be sad or upset. I'm just grateful that somehow, for whatever reason, fate allowed me to be a Cardinal fan. My life as a baseball fan has truly been blessed, and I consider myself very fortunate."

go cubs

Lower case to denote lack of heartfelt enthusiasm for the sentiment, though intellectually I'm in agreement.

go cubs

For my friends who are Cubs fans: The first loaf-at-a-time bread slicing machine wasn't built until 1912. So, if you're a Cubs fan, winning this World Series really would be the best thing since sliced bread!

Dave: I saw my first Cubs game in the early spring of 1968. I had been back from Vietnam about six months and TET was upon us (ancient battle). I was in desperate need of something to occupy my mind. A fellow at work gave me a ticket to watch the Cubs and after clearing it with my SgtMaj I caught the "El" and went to my first professional ball game.

It was a very interesting experience. I had almost no idea of how the game was played but I could still see the symmetry and grace of how it was played. In the next two years I went to probably four or five games. Somehow, their message of "never give up" and "wait til next year" infused me and I took it for my own. In many ways, it was similar to learning how to become a Marine.

I have never regretted adopting The Cubs as MY team.

Climb the Limbs Like a Ladder

What's left of a once beautiful blue spruce.
We would climb the limbs like a ladder
and get on to the roof.
A great place to hide
and lay in wait during BB gun fights!!!

Photography by Aaron B. Carriker
Thanks to Clive James and Marguerite Chapman, I learned a new poem today and could not help thinking of these photographs that my brother Aaron took a few years ago. His captions read so nostalgically, they could well be lines straight from Hone Tuwhare's poetry!

Friend
Do you remember
that wild stretch of land
with the lone tree guarding the point
from the sharp-tongued sea?

The fort we built out of branches
wrenched from the tree
is dead wood now.
The air that was thick with the whirr of
toetoe spear succumbs at last to the grey gull's wheel.

Oyster-studded roots
of the mangrove yield no finer feast
of silver-bellied eels, and sea-snails
cooked in a rusty can.

Allow me to mend the broken ends
of shared days:
but I wanted to say
that the tree we climbed
that gave food and drink
to youthful dreams, is no more.
Pursed to the lips her fine-edged
leaves made whistle - now stamp
no silken tracery on the cracked
clay floor.

Friend,
in this drear
dreamless time I clasp
your hand if only to reassure
that all our jewelled fantasies were
real and wore splendid rags.

Perhaps the tree
will strike fresh roots again:
give soothing shade to a hurt and
troubled world.

by Hone Tuwhare, 1922 - 2008
New Zealand Maori Poet

Aaron writes:
I was more than a little surprised to
see that the pond still has water in it.
Really nasty water, but it's still holding water . . .

For more nostalgia
from Aaron, Hone, Marguerite, and others,
see my Fortnightly post: "Broken & Beautiful"