FICKLE FANNY

She didn't like her figure.
She didn't like her face.
Her elbows were too boney.
Her neck was a disgrace.
She didn't like her voice.
She didn't like her eyes.
She could use a bigger bosom
And slightly smaller thighs.
"How can a person
"Expect to be a girl
"When she has a head of hair
"That will never hold a curl?"
She didn't like her ankles
She didn't like her knees.
Have you ever known a Fanny
So difficult to please?
Then she met a fella
And learned to her delight
That everything she had
Was absolutely right.
11/16/01

SCROLL DOWN  ¶ 8:57 AM

  THE COMPLETE BUST

There was a young lady from Philly
Who was so well endowed it was silly.
With skates for her chest
And a sled for the rest,
She scattered the crowds willy-nilly.
4/16/00

SCROLL DOWN  ¶ 11:11 AM

  CRY UNCLE I - The Bigamist

When I start to write about my Uncle Don, it’s hard deciding where to begin. He had four wives, unusual in our family, but dwelling on the wives would tell more about them than about him.
He had various careers – accountant, salesman, merchant, and finally postmaster – and he was conscientious and efficient in all of them. He was far more civic minded than your average uncle.
He lived more than half his life in Mendocino and for many years wrote a column for the weekly paper. At various times he acted on the amateur stage, played a musical instrument in a community ensemble, served as a volunteer fireman and was active in one of the service clubs. He loved books, delighted in cooking, had a host of friends, and was a torment to his sister - my mother.
He knew her vulnerabilities. She worshiped her parents and would not admit that they had any faults. Uncle Don, however, would recall incidents that invariably put them in a bad light.
“Don!” she would sputter, “That’s simply not true.”
Although Jaen and I sided with my mother during these revelations, we didn’t have her hang ups, as we would call them today, and we were never sure whether uncle’s stories were true or party made up. However, he had a humorous way with them, and we heard things about the family we would never have heard from my mother.
I suppose she was a bit of a snob, at least there were some family things that were not discussed. For instance, the fact that their grandfather, my great grandfather had abandoned his family was something I learned from Uncle Don, not my mother. In fact, it was years after his father died before it was mentioned at all. The old man had been acutely embarrassed and, I would guess, defensive about it.
So Jean and I were surprised during one of my mother’s rare visits to Mendocino, when Uncle Don recalled that their grandfather had not only abandoned his family, but suggested that he had remarried and raised another family without benefit of divorce. In short, he was a bigamist.
My mother was speechless with rage. Don went on to claim that he had been in touch with one of the children from the second marriage and would soon have more information.
“It’s not true,” mother finally managed to say.
Of course, more information was never offered, but the suggestion had done its damage. It spoiled my mother’s visit.
Not many months after this, it may have been the same year, Uncle Don was selected to be a grand marshal of the Mendocino Fourth of July Parade. That made him an honored citizen.
All well and good, honored citizen, but we knew he could also be a devil.

SCROLL DOWN  ¶ 10:25 AM

  THE MISSING LINK

The first of us to walk erect
Lived on stuff he could collect,
Lots of nuts and fruit and such,
A little meat, but not too much.

The days were long. The nights were dire.
He hadn't learned to manage fire.
Without the comfort of a light,
There was good cause to fear the night,
But when he awoke to stretch and yawn,
He gazed with wonder at the dawn
And thanked the sun with all his heart.
Thus religion got its start.

But what's so easily begun,
A little praise for Brother Sun,
Won't stay easy very long
When someone says your ritual's wrong.
You've got to wear your birthday suit
And offer up some well-washed fruit,
But first of all you can't begin
Until you been absolved of sin.
Little wonder with rules like these
Our man returned into the trees.
7/14/01

SCROLL DOWN  ¶ 9:45 AM

  TEST YOUR APHORISM

Charles Hunt of Calistoga, California, submits: “Survival is human nature, but human behavior is generally suicidal and getting more so.”

If you have a comment or an aphorism of your own you think is original, let’s hear from you.

SCROLL DOWN  ¶ 6:09 AM