One of my favorite scenes from the MILAGRO BEANFIELD WAR is the old man lying in bed, and slowly opening his eyes expresses mild surprise at still being alive to face another day. Not a few of us oldsters, especially those of us living alone, can certainly relate to this, and some of us envy the old fellow having that ghost as a friend and companion to help him through the day, and in the end to ease his passing. I much preferred this to the ending of MEET JOE BLACK that missed the warm and fuzzy mark.

But we know life is not always warm and fuzzy, that it is a bittersweet waltz and most of us dance though each day best we can. However, there are times when I wonder if slipping quietly into dementia isn’t to be preferred to what my doctor assures me isn’t very likely in my case. As I shared with her, I consider it a somewhat mixed blessing to be told I will probably maintain a sharp mind to the end while envying the old fellow his friendly ghost.

To that end of maintaining a sharp mind, I used to encourage my pupils to keep a personal journal, explaining to them the benefits of expressing their thoughts by writing them out each day. But there was the essential caveat that such a journal should be kept private.

Learning to organize thoughts in written expression is one of the higher learning processes of the mind, and one that serves the person well throughout their lives. It is most unfortunate our schools in too many cases no longer emphasize this most essential part of the educational process as the universities began so many years ago to degenerate into institutions that no longer emphasized the 3 Rs to prospective teachers, but became factories of social engineering.

When it comes to the writing of books, however, a few years ago Herb Benham had an excellent column having to do with his experience at a book signing. Unless you are a “made” writer by way of fame or having a relative in the book publishing business book signings are lonely affairs. I have had three of them at Russo’s Books and all were lonely affairs. Simply put, unless there are many thousands of dollars spent in promotion and advertising your book is not going to become known to the public. Many an author has had to learn this bitter lesson. But real writers and authors write by compulsion, not with the idea of gaining fame and fortune by their writing as Henry Thoreau learned expressing the thought writers usually only have the pain of their labors as their reward.

As to book signings, while I have never sold many through such events for those who love books the time is never wasted in places like Russo’s. Just like visits to a library, to be surrounded by books is to be in the company of “friends.” But when it comes to fame it is rightly said it exacts a harsh tribute. I can sympathize with Scott Adams of "Dilbert" who went online with his book because he "... didn't want to shake the sweaty hands of strangers in Bakersfield, saying nice things to them." I don't take exception to this remark of Adams as being disparaging of Bakersfield though my birth certificate reads "Born in Weedpatch, near Bakersfield." Of course, the folks actually born and living in Bakersfield might have gotten a little uppity about the remark.

I do admit to engaging in whimsy at times as a writer, and even have a literary award from The Writers of Kern for such whimsical writing. So to the surprise of none of my companion writers and seeking neither fame nor fortune some years ago I began a tongue in cheek “Weedpatch Gazette” intended to poke fun at both myself and politicians, the latter often taking themselves far too seriously. A column in the fabulous Gazette was titled “The Cracker Barrel.” I would like to share one of these early columns by way of just plain fun, though the incidents recounted are somewhat dated and readers will have to reach back a little in memory to recall the events of the time.

Zeke is a regular around the Cracker Barrel… a great fellow, but a little funny in the head since his mule kicked him in same. Being alone out in the field when this happened, he had to crawl to his shack. Being in great pain and having a horse capsule of tranquilizer in his pocket he had planned using on a recalcitrant mare he was trying to break, he took about half of this horse-sized dose and said he not only didn’t have any trouble reaching the shack, he didn’t feel any pain for two days. But his head never returned to normal.

In spite of the resulting bubbles in his think-tank, Zeke makes some valuable contributions to our discussions around the Cracker Barrel. Such knocks in the head sometime result in not only scattering your type and addling your pate, but also making some parts of your brain become active in ways approaching genius. Things like prescience and other Psi phenomena have been claimed to result from such injuries.

Anyhow, because of this aberration in his thought processes since getting kicked in the head by his mule and that heroic dose of tranquilizer, Zeke has been given to making “pronouncements” in much the same vein as those preachers that are always telling folks how this or that prophecy of the Bible has been, or is in the process of being, fulfilled. Of course, such people don’t have Zeke’s excuse even though they talk and act like they’ve been kicked in the head by some kind of critter.

But unlike preachers, in Zeke’s case his “pronouncements” are usually directed at politicians. Now mind Zeke hasn’t had much book learning and couldn’t spell his way through a book of cigarette papers, so we all knew he had probably never heard of Nostradamus or Edgar Cayce, like those university fellows at Weedpatch University. So we knew the kind of things he would prophesy or pronounce had to come from that part of his brain made active by the kick to it… and the horse pill.

For example, just the other day he made a pronouncement that took us all aback. He said he had seen something on TV where two fellows in Congress were comparing their experiences with outhouses, you know, privies. Now all us Weedpatch folks are used to outhouses; we’ve all dug the holes and built these necessary structures in time past. My grandad had built a really grand one on the mining claim with hinged lid and big enough to store mining implements like dynamite, picks, and shovels; a really great outhouse, although in winter you didn’t sit there dreaming of riches since grandad didn’t bother to put a stove in it.

But this exchange between these two fellows, Zeke claimed he saw it while watching some Congressional foo fa raw, which cast some suspicion on this to the rest of us. After all, how many of those folks in Congress go to talkin’ on TV about their experiences with outhouses?

In any event, Zeke had an inspiration. His plan was to build an outhouse on wheels, kind’ a like a trailer, and take it to DC and park the contraption in front of that place where all these Congressmen and Congresswomen “do their business.”

Well, we had a hard time convincing Zeke that those folks really didn’t need a privy and we kind ‘a doubted they really wanted one, that they had plenty of dark, comfortable places to “do their business,” though we all agreed Zeke’s plan had some merit. You see, a proper outhouse is equipped with a bag of lime. When you are done you toss a scoop of this on the pile to help deodorize and sanitize, kill maggots and such and keep the fly population down. We were all agreed Congress is badly in need of something similar to deodorize and sanitize things because the smell does get pretty powerful at times from that direction. While Zeke is a little crazy, he’s a real American patriot and he isn’t stupid.