Thoughts from the deep end with Miss Julie’s Pool Boy:

Miss Julie’s Pool Boy stumbled putting on his gym shorts this morning, he’s not adept at his own stunt work. My knees, 20 years older than the rest of me, then clicked & creaked & clanked a syncopated mezzo forte of the Rice Krispies cereal tune down the hall while I sought the first cup of my morning addiction. In a past littered with poor, dumb life decisions, my fingers were smashed by clackers, I judged the parabolic arc in summer twilight of the original, metal tipped Jarts to avoid impalement, ate burgers & questionable chicken nuggets out of an environmentally irresponsible styrofoam box, I still possess a library book from a school I promoted from in June 1977 & worry if I owe over $355 in two cents a day late fees while also worrying if my promotion is valid & if the last 46 years are a sham equal to the six Brady kids, their father an architect, surviving on one bathroom with no commode, Milli Vanilli, & Nixon’s secretary’s explanation of the 18 missing minutes.

My first car was a columbia blue 1967 Mercury Cougar with a white vinyl top that had bucket seats with a lap belt for safety that I wasn’t required by law to wear & a push button AM radio with an attached 8 track player that I listened to in my ensemble purchased solely at The Leader of alligator or polo pony branded shirt with the collar popped under a button down while sporting Duck Head or Dickies khakis & Bass Weejuns with no socks while aimlessly “cruising Brainerd,” with countless fly-bys of the Krispy Kreme, Krystal, & Bennigans & numerous passes under the top radio station’s Studio in the Sky.

As my first sips of coffee chase away the effects of another night my bladder tells me it’s between 2 & 3 AM, as I watch Columbo unravel another homicide on my preferred streamer, among commercials letting me know I’d be happier with a hair replacement or pills to increase my testosterone or my need to switch to a safer search engine accompanied by a knocked off tune of The Police or counting my fingers to see if I have pre-diabetes, with me less than a fortnight from leveling up to my second year in the sexagenarian club, & nearly 37 years of happily proving with Miss Julie that you can live on love, I think back to Wednesday on asphalt with 50 youngsters, standing downrange to be a scoring judge at the interim student ministers request, this is defined as “expendable asset” in seminary, while a giant slingshot loaded with eggs, potatoes, teddy bears, & an expired, badly aimed can of one of the 2 most redundantly named items ever, vegetarian beans, (Life Application Bible the other, I’m thinking life application is kinda presumed), that would have sent me to the ER except that fortunately, along with vibrant hair & glowing skin, I still have nimble feet & retained the ability to duck. As the slingshot flung its ordnance skyward, I watched males ages 12 to 17, erupt with joy as a can of Spam exploded & turned the ham & pork by products that won World War 2 into shrapnel & I thought, “in 20 years some of these guys have a chance to be responsible citizens, some have an excellent chance to be between 32 & 37, but all are going to dumb stuff, only slower”…