Stev Guyer
1954 - 2018
|
Down and DIrty
Shadowbox Live
The Worly Building
Columbus, Ohio
by
Rick Brown
Click Here for the Review
The Non-Fiction Theater of the Truly Mundane
proudly presents:
Beer Run
by
Rick Brown
Scene: The baby blue interior of a white, 1963 Chrysler Newport (affectionately nicknamed Smiley) … center stage and facing the audience. Rick is behind the wheel, driving a little maniacally … mildly frustrated. Sitting in the front seat next to him … on the passenger side … is Yvonne. College buddy Burt can be seen sitting in the center of the rear seat … hands folded on the front seat between Yvonne and Rick. Yvonne is somewhat dispassionate while Burt looks determined. The three are on a Sunday night beer run. The year is 1975. Very … very few places serve or sell beer in Ohio on Sundays in 1975.
Rick – I dunno. Maybe this is a lost cause,
Yvonne – Well … at least it’s still early.
Burt raises his eyebrows stoically.
Rick grows more frustrated and begins lightly pounding the steering wheel with his fist.
Rick (exasperatingly) - Dammit! We’ve been driving around looking for a place selling beer for over an hour now!
Burt looks at Rick and again stoically raises his eyebrows.
Rick – It’s as if … as if … God Almighty doesn’t want us to get beer!
Burt unfolds his hands and places them on Rick’s shoulders reassuringly.
Burt (with sarcastic confidence) – Bullshit! He’s just TESTING us … to see how BAD we want it!
Curtain
Cast:
Rick – his theologically impatient thirsty self
Yvonne – her ambivalent, charming self
Burt – his theologically self-assured thirsty self
Smiley – her 1963 Chrysler Newport gas guzzling thirsty self
Anthem
by
Rick Brown
Prologue:
Luther League is a youth group for Lutheran high schoolers. I was huge into this League of Lutherness … being both my church and Cleveland Conference president … at the same time. My 17-year-old self believed this to be hot shit … albeit dorky hot shit. At least it seemed that way to me in 1969.
While most gatherings always had a devotional aspect, I enjoyed it socially … as did most of the “Leaguers”. I attended church in a town a few miles down Bagley Road from my school district … giving me two distinctly different pools of friends: school and church. I developed a mildly split personality because of this. Dale was one of my best buds in those Luther League days and one of a few I shared both sides of myself with. And I’m glad to have recently reconnected with him … and gotten to know his wife Becky. They have a house an hour or so north of Sarasota … so Yvonne and I can enjoy their company on occasion … like this one.
The Book of Face
February 21, 2018
Yvonne and I had a lovely lunch and visit with old Luther League buddy Dale and his wife Becky yesterday. When we sat down at our table at The Old Salty Dog ... Dale and I broke into song ... belting out the Ohio District Luther League Anthem:
"We're Ohio born and Ohio bred!
And when … we … DIE … we'll be …
OHIO DEAD!
Oh HI Ohio HIO!
Oh hi Oh HIO! HIO!
Oh Hi … Ohio … Di … strict!
CHA! CHA! CHA!!!"
...No ... we did not.
Epilogue:
Eventually another good Luther League friend of mine … Kim …changed the tune of our beloved anthem … just to be obnoxious. He was being 17 and probably wanted to piss off Della. She was our church parish worker. She was also self-imposed Luther League sponsor and molder of America’s Lutheran youth.
Della was very tall. (My dad called her Bird Legs … affectionately of course.) She was middle aged and never married. (He also referred to her as The World’s Oldest Virgin … again affectionately.) And when Della got flustered at us Luther Leaguers she would storm around the room alternating between clapping her hands and wildly flailing her arms while shrieking “YOUNG PEOPLE! YOUNG PEOPLE! YOUNG PEOPLE!!!”
What Kim brilliantly did to our anthem was this. At the end of the line “… and when we die we’ll be …” instead of singing “Ohio dead.” he would yell out just the word “DEAD!” and stop singing. Consequently, everyone else stopped dead in their tracks … so to speak … abruptly ending the anthem. And obviously being OHIO dead is a brag. Just being dead … is … well … existential at best … atheist at worst.
Kim and all the boys thought this great fun. But the girls merely looked at us with dorky Luther Leaguer disgust.
And Della? She would be frantically pacing around on her bird legs … clapping her hands … flailing her arms … shouting “YOUNG PEOPLE! YOUNG PEOPLE! That is highly inappropriate YOUNG PEOPLE! That is our ANTHEM YOUNG PEOPLE!!”
So … you can probably see why Dale and I refrained from proudly breaking into The Ohio District Luther League Anthem at the restaurant. Without Della there carrying on and screaming “YOUNG PEOPLE! YOUNG PEOPLE! YOUNG PEOPLE!” it just wouldn’t have been the same.
Besides … all these years later … Dale and I are Old Salty Dogs. |
Lessons
Remember
the color of midnight,
its icy stillness
like frozen glass.
Forget
the void of night
where shadows prowl.
Remember
the misty glim
of dawn's first
rising.
Then forgive
your yesterdays,
for we all
have sinned.
They are lessons
for each day.
Dennis Toth |
http://leavesofcrass.blogspot.com/
Rick's Books, Naked Sunfish Caviar
& Best Bites,
are available at:
Lulu.com
Rick's
book, Best Bites is available at:
Lulu.com & Amazon.com
Jimmy Mak's new book,
Daddies Shouldn't Breakdance,
is available at:
Amazon.com & CreateSpace.com
|
Bee
by
Amy McCrory
Blog:
http://amymccrory.wordpress.com/
FearLess Warrior
by
aNna (Wellman) rybaT
Blog: http://www.annarybat.blogspot.com
Golden Years
by
Rick Brown
Yvonne and I first met Mark shortly after we bought our tiny island bungalow. His house is on the canal … right across the street. And we quickly learned from other neighbors that while he could be gruff … Mark was a loveable curmudgeon … as well as the local historian. Soon he was regaling my wife and I with the tales of our beach abode. Long legend short … Bob Dylan recorded 2 or 3 songs here in the early 1960s. And Bobby Z. stayed at our house.
I have seen proof of the recordings … living in our bungalow … not so much. Yet I find no reason to doubt the guy across the way. He has … after all … lived on the key since 1961. And the man is so unfiltered … so blunt … that I have no doubts of his sincerity.
Mr. Mark took his good old time warming up to Yvonne and I. Most of our early conversations we shouted from driveway to driveway. Our socializing eventually moved to pleasant conversations in the middle of the road while checking mailboxes or taking trash to the curb. Still … early on it became obvious Mark was keeping an eye on our place when we were up north … which was most of the time until Yvonne retired.
I remember the very first time I was invited into his home for a beer. Halfway through my adult beverage … out of the blue … this wiry 70-something blurted “You know the worst thing that ever happened to the key is when they finished I-75!”
To which I politely responded, “Yeah? Why is that?”
With an incredulous look on his face, Mark growled, “BEE CAUSE! Millions of assholes like you drive down here!”
Ah yes … male bonding over canned beers on a hot, humid Florida afternoon with the drone of baseball announcers in the background. But ya know what? Five or 6 years later … well … in all honesty … I kind of agree. If the years have given me any wisdom at all … like my neighbor … I have a much firmer grasp on context.
As the years have passed Mark and Yvonne and I have gotten to be good friends. You couldn’t ask for a better neighbor. I affectionately refer to our “no holds barred” pal as “The Boo Radley” of our neighborhood. He sometimes gives us a couple spring training baseball tickets … he has a spring season pass. He’ll hand me the tickets and say, “Hey! I can’t go to every Goddamned game!”
Nowadays I have an open invitation to drop over to Mark’s Old Florida home anytime I need a beer … booze … boy talk … happy hour. Just last week I got home from drinking bad, cheap beer out of cans ... bonding with my now 80-year-old neighbor who lives across the street. When Yvonne inquired about my visit I told her we mostly sat around bitching about getting old and our ailments. And the highlight of this particular happy hour for me? When Mark gulped down a big swig of brew …. looked me in the eye … and proclaimed … "GOLDEN YEARS? They call it that 'cause you're peeing down your leg."
I love this man.
Elva Griffith's new book,
The Analysis of H Final,
is available at:
Amazon.com
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