NNAOPP Update
May 2013
A few weeks ago I encountered a
lady I hold in high regard. A
month earlier she asked me to participate in an event. It was a request I was reluctant to
grant for reasons of no interest to anyone, so I stalled and mumbled rather
than give a definitive answer. She
greeted me warmly then said, "You were crawfishing on me about that
program weren't you?" Up to
that moment I had not heard crawfishing used as a verb, and I complimented her
on her wordsmithing. Then we
proceeded to tell each other our favorite crawfishing stories. Here's mine:
In our younger days we regularly
participated in our annual company canoe trip held on the North Fork of the
White River south of Ava, MO, aka county seat of Booger County, just north of
the Arkansas line. It was a
family event, and we would always include our little ones. One year when Ben was about 7 and
Lucy was 12, we were floating down the river and stopped at a gravel bar to
wait for our group to re-form. Ben
was playing on the riverbank and trying to pick up crawdads. He would get one, then it would wriggle
out of his hands. Lucy would have
nothing to do with the little critters.
To allay her concerns I picked one up at its waist and held it up for
the kids to investigate. They
looked on with curiosity.
The crawdad's pincers were
frantically trying to find a target, and Lucy sagely commented, "That
would really hurt if it pinched you."
Then in one of the top ten
dumbest things I'd done up to that point in time, I assured her there was
nothing to worry about. I told
her, "Don't worry, their little pincers are lined with velvet pads, just
like the inside of a jewelry box."
I held my index finger close to demonstrate their limited range of
attack. Whereupon the creature
clamped down on the proffered digit, and it was assuredly not a velvet padded
pinch. I yelped in an unmanly
fashion and flicked my assailant as far as I could throw it.
Other than Ben's recurring
nightmares about killer crabs, the incident was a small price to pay in
exchange for a lasting family memory.
"Yes, Dad was indeed a moron."
Last week we helped Lucy get all
the kids bathed and ready for bed after 4-year old granddaughter Waverly's
first tee-ball practice. Waverly
was in her pj's, and I told her I would read her one book before bedtime. Predictably, she selected a compendium
just slightly shorter than Dr. Zhivago. She snuggled beside me and halted me before I
began. Then she launched into the
following soliloquy: "Papa,
I've got bad news to share with you.
Did you know that my great, great, great, great, great, great, (the
little tyke is a gifted staller), great, great, great, great, great grandmother
is dead? She was even older than
you." Ouch!
I shared this little vignette
with Lucy, and she lent some context.
Apparently Lucy had recently introduced Waverly to the concept of
ancestors, including those who might have traveled west in covered wagons.
Last night I ran into a friend
who is an independent movie producer.
He asked me how the book sales were going, and I told him they had
slowed to a trickle. He comforted
me by noting, "The book racket is a bitch. Movies are a hard sell, but
nothing compared to books." I
told him I was considering re-releasing the book with a new title eliminating
the reference to Nude Nuns, about which I've received a bit of negative
feedback. He said, "No,
that's a waste of time. What you
really need to do is change your name.
It's your extreme nobodyism that's killing you. I believe John Updike is
available. He's dead and can't
sue."
I'm thinking something a little
more exotic might work. That's the
news from here.
Boris Pasternak
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