Pribek

About an hour ago, I lit (I thought) my last Pall Mall and was preparing to knock off for the night.

But….

…my mind is like an old, heavy duty, Norge refrigerator, humming reliably along and the door is cluttered with pictures, out-of-date calendars, children’s artwork, shopping lists and a thousand memos all stuck on there with magnets. Every once in a while, a breeze will come and blow away some of the clutter, exposing another layer of forgotten to-do lists.

The old man was a character. Lived through the great depression, the big war, served in the Navy during Korea. Straight out of the service, he took a job selling Edsel’s and used his G.I. Bill to take flying lessons. He was a salesman to the end but, I don’t think he ever flew a plane more than a couple of times after he got his license.

He was a washout as a student but a voracious reader, read more books than anyone I’ve ever known. Any kind of books, every kind of books. Maybe, because of his lack of formal education, his opinions and analysis of literature were fascinating, untainted by conventional wisdom, raw reactions.

I often asked his for take on different writers.

Steinbeck-”He was pretty good, some of his characters could have used some balls, like the guy in “Winter of Our Discontent”. “Travels With Charley”, that was a good book.”

Hemingway-”He was a good writer. He was better when he wasn’t writing about all that overtly macho crap. He may have been a closet fag. “Old Man And The Sea”, that was a really good book.”

Not long before he died, we were sitting around on a summer night, drinking beer and, there was some show on T.V. that had something about Kerouac. I was surprised, for some reason, when he told me that he really enjoyed “On the Road”.

So, I asked him what he thought about Ferlinghetti, Ginsberg and the beat poets.

“Ahh…I never went much for poetry. So much of it is so cerebral or, seems like just an intellectual pursuit. Charles Bukowski, I like some of his stuff, more for the common man. You know who was really good, though? That longshoreman from San Francisco, Hoffer. I think he was better than all those guys. You should read some of his stuff.”

And tonight, four Pall Mall’s ago, as I was getting ready to hit the hay, it came to me all of the sudden; I never did look into the longshoreman/poet from San Francisco. And, that’s exactly what I typed into the search engine; longshoreman/poet from San Francisco. One thing about the web that I love is, when the mental to-do list catches my glance, I can at least take a first step, right then. Once I’ve taken the first step, I’m more likely to follow through.

Eric Hoffer said…

“Spiritual stagnation ensues when man’s environment becomes unpredictable or when his inner life is made wholly predictable.”

and…

“The compulsion to take ourselves seriously is in inverse proportion to our creative capacity. When the creative flow dries up, all we have left is our importance.”

Sometimes, something will keep you awake a little longer than you intended. Some might say it’s a ghost me, I tend to look at it as a little reminder to follow through.