February in Geneva, Illinois or a Cool Study for Summer

She leans on the small round table, chin propped on hand, elbow on Formica in the Geneva Barnes and Noble. The eyes are warm and she smiles softly almost like a lover, but the subject of her affection is the little girl across the table. She expresses her exhaustion along with a mother’s love in this look.

No wedding ring. Mom without Dad. Her coat is dark grey with a green plaid lining peaking out of her hood. Upon her dark blonde hair she sports a bright red velvet hat. Mom after work.

In mid description, Mom exits with the little girl, leaving undefined the natural beauty of her eyes, nose, sweet smile, soft chin, high cheek bones, and a life lived day-by-day.

Airplane

A small propeller-driven airplane



Every business is an airplane and every employee a potential propeller. The company flies on the wings of marketing and sales success. It carries a cargo of products and services. The pilot is the CEO who sits up front giving direction. Employees fill the passenger section where they work to achieve a quality work life as part of a successful family and career. It all starts with work life balance.

The power of the company comes from the engine of innovation, creativity and a desire for success. The company is fueled by its resources of time and money.

Before the age of jet engines, propellers pulled the aircraft forward in victory towards its goal. Without a propeller, the rest of the airplane didn’t matter because the plane couldn’t get off the ground. If the propeller failed in flight, the plane crashed.

The propeller is the person who is out in front of the business taking the lead in accomplishing its mission. It’s the champion sales person, the innovative researcher and product designer, the receptionist with the pleasant greeting. It’s the customer service rep who resolves the complaint on the first call. It’s anyone who does an extraordinary job of simply doing their own job well. An airplane can have many propellers. The more propellers it has, the faster it gets to its destination.

You have two choices in any job. You can sit in the passenger area consuming valuable company resources and going along for the ride – or you can become a propeller that moves the company forward to success.

Which do you want to be?

Airplane

Every business is an airplane and every employee a potential propeller. The company flies on the wings of marketing and sales success. It carries a cargo of products and services. The pilot is the CEO who sits up front giving direction. Employees fill the passenger section where they work to achieve a quality work life as part of a successful family and career. It all starts with work life balance.

The power of the company comes from the engine of innovation, creativity and a desire for success. The company is fueled by its resources of time and money.
Before the age of jet engines, propellers pulled the aircraft forward in victory towards its goal. Without a propeller, the rest of the airplane didn’t matter because the plane couldn’t get off the ground. If the propeller failed in flight, the plane crashed.

The propeller is the person who is out in front of the business taking the lead in accomplishing its mission. It’s the champion sales person, the innovative researcher and product designer, the receptionist with the pleasant greeting. It’s the customer service rep who resolves the complaint on the first call. It’s anyone who does an extraordinary job of simply doing their own job well. An airplane can have many propellers. The more propellers it has, the faster it gets to its destination.

You have two choices in any job. You can sit in the passenger area consuming valuable company resources and going along for the ride – or you can become a propeller that moves the company forward to success. Which do you want to be?

The Longhorn

Photographs and paintings of old west cowboys and cattle compete with western desert landscapes. A chief’s portrait shows a proud face looking off to a hard future for his people – winters filled with too much alcohol and too little justice or mercy, not trusting a white man’s God.

Touhy and Mannheim is a far cry from the Colorado or Rio Grande rivers of nineteenth century lore. The hostess has a Russian accent. The Longhorn is a sports bar and steakhouse. Country and Western music plays too loud from the speakers.

Stetsons rest on pegs on shelves, never worn but dedicated to memories of old cowboys, Hollywood western adventures, and old radio and TV dramas. Where are you now Gene Autry and Roy Rogers? Moldering in a round, gray tin can in a back lot studio warehouse? And you Red Ryder and Range Rider? Have your horses long ago faded into the Montana sage brush or the foothills of Wyoming? Does the Rifleman still polish his Winchester on some distant shore along the River Styx? Do the Maverick brothers ply their trade on riverboats ‘twixt Natchez and New Orleans? Where are you Wyatt Earp in these days of outlaws and urban terrorists?

A good hamburger or steak will have to suffice as a reminder of pioneer days, while life travels onward toward distant stars and a business lunch in a post Great Recession Chicago where, as far as a western facing eye can see, stand the ‘burbs, one after another, and houses, the last cash crop of the Midwest Promised Land.

Where Babies Come From

I know where babies come from. Do you?
My big brother Jimmy told me all about it. Jimmy said one day Mommy got sad ‘cause she didn’t have a boy friend. You know what Mommy did? Jimmy said she decided to meet a man named Daddy and so she did. Daddy made Mommy happy. That’s because Daddy was nice to her. Daddy bought her stuff. And Daddy took her places like the movies. Then one day Daddy took Mommy to church. That’s when they got married. That made Mommy and Daddy so happy.
“The End,” Jimmy said.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Where’s the part about the babies?”
Jimmy said, “Oh yeah, I forgot that part.”
Do you sometimes forget to tell a part when you tell a story? I know I do.
Then Jimmy told me about the babies. “So one day Mommy got sad.”
I said, “But I thought you said she was happy?”
“She was happy but she got sad anyway because she didn’t have a baby.”
“So then what happened?”
Jimmy said, “Daddy said to Mommy, ‘Look, Mommy, you’re not having a baby because you only have half a baby seed in your belly.’”
“How did Daddy know that?” I asked.
“Daddies are smart about things like that.”
“Oh,” I said.
Jimmy said, “Then Daddy said, ‘Look Mommy, I have a seed, too. Let’s put my half with your half to make a whole baby seed.”
“Then what happened?” I asked.
Jimmy said, “They put their half a seeds together and then a baby started to grow inside Mommy’s belly.”
“Then what happened,” I asked. I ask that a lot you know.
Jimmy said, “When Mommy’s belly got too big out popped the baby.”
“Was the baby me?” I asked.
“No!” Jimmy said. “I was the first baby. You came second. That’s why I’m the oldest.”
“And that’s where babies come from?” I asked
“Yep,” Jimmy said.
“That’s silly,” I said. “I thought they came from Pittsburg or one of those places like that.”
The End.

McDonalds Glenview on Waukegan Road

The painting closest to the front of the store features an impossibly thin girl holding her heart to the sky in worship. Is she a nun in the making who is offering her heart to God? Or is she a goddess extending the heart of God up for mass adulation? Blue dominates a ruddy red hue in this vision.

In the other picture, ruddy red dominates a minor blue chord. The image appears to be two people shaping the center of focus. Or are these two saplings bent in the wind?

A dark blue-gray woven pattern on paper imitates a fine cloth pasted to the wall perpendicular to the creamy brick.

The man in the corner booth where the two walls meet sits below a third water color. The blue and ruddy red both are strong, but a blue border – light blue on three sides and deep blue along the bottom – dominates. A tall female form in ruddy red dances despite her single leg. She balances on a board upon two wheels or barrels.

The man wears a gray-blue sweater that matches the wall so that with a squint, he disappears from the neck down, except for two floating hands holding the Sun-Times.

Above the neck, he wears a scraggly gray beard like a man retired young or unemployed. A mustache matches the beard both in scraggles and color.

His face is long, thin and bony with a straight, patrician nose. His wire frame glasses are the size and shape of military issue from the long ago Nam-era.

Bushy eyebrows hide behind the glasses as do the color of his eyes. His ears stand in close bass relief against the side of his head. His hair is full on top and trimmed business-like on the side above the ear.

The paper holds his interest for a time.

He shakes the paper to set the pages straight, tosses his coffee cup, and dons his navy blue jacket as he leaves the booth and the paintings behind. He places his hand carefully into the jacket to take comfort in the feel of his loaded Glock 31. The man doesn’t have far to travel or long to wait.

August 3, 2009

In the morning, we go down to the big open room where the Days Inn offers a free breakfast. Joseph and I place our orders at the big opening in the wall in front of the cook. He tells us to leave our yellow slip of paper on which we have checked off what we want. Pancakes for Joseph, eggs and bacon for me. As I grab a cup of coffee from the machine, decaf because the high test is out, I notice that the other folks in the room have scrambled eggs. I prefer mine over medium, like Goldilocks – not too hard, not too soft, but just right.

When the eggs come, I’m surprised to see they are cooked over medium to perfection. How did the cook know? No doubt a mind reader. Or perhaps that’s the way you get ‘em unless you ask for scrambled.

Montana requires more miles on Joseph’s Mazda RX8 odometer than any other state. We come in from the southeast, cross the state about two-thirds through and then make a sharp turn to the northwest to come out near the top of the state before heading into Idaho.

The mountains are higher now that we are in western Montana. The mountains are to our left as we make that northwest trek. We seem to be following a long valley looking for a pass through the wall of mountains to the west of us.

The Idaho panhandle gives us the shortest state we have to cross. We’re in the mountains now.

Eastern Washington is dry, almost a desert. Spokane looms in front of us and then we are headed across the landscape towards the coast. The mountains loom higher to the west and the RX8 eats miles until we approach Seattle.

Since we’re not sure about the ferry schedule across the Pungent Sound, and because Joseph wants to cross the Tacoma Narrows Bridge where the original bridge collapsed in a famous disaster, we head down Washington State Route 18 towards Tacoma. It’s a good road that moves fast even in the commuter traffic at six-thirty in the evening. Rt. 18 takes us to I-5 where we head south past Federal Way.

The Tacoma Narrows bridge, which is at exit 131, not 132 as indicated on the map, requires a toll if you are traveling the other way. It’s free if you are heading north towards Gig Harbor. We follow Rt. 16 until it turns into state Rt. 3 at Bremerton. Rat 3 winds through the northern half of the island. We turn at Rt. 104 and cross the bridge to Marestone Island and past Port Ludlow on the way to Port Hadlock. We follow my brother Richard’s directions to the home he shares with partner Danelle.

Richard is the poet. Richard Lloyd author of Sixty Spins of a Lopsided Wheel, Woodacre and other books of poetry. He is fairly well known among the poetry set on the west coast around Marin County, California as well as here in the Port Townsend area.

Turns out Richard and Danelle were expecting us to spend a few days at Mount Rushmore and not arrive here until later in the week. Surprise! But they seem glad to see us. This is the first meeting for Joseph and me with Danelle. She is a sweet lady, a hugger, an instant sister for me and friend for Joseph.

My brother David is staying with Richard and Danelle along with his daughter, Catie. They are staying in the carriage house above the garage. The garage serves as a workshop and junkpile.

I am happy – and so is my bottom – to have completed the drive.