newhouse notebook

It may take a while, but first memories are there. They have to be….we remember them.

This may be autobiographical.  If so, it comes with the caveat that most of it is made up. 

True friendship knows no grading scale.

On the set of The Cisco Kid just after Paul Landres yells ‘Cut’!

A handful of years have slipped past since Salty entered immortality and time has not decreased his memory in the Valley. On this anniversary of his death about a hundred people attend the Requiem Mass said for Salty today at St Paul’s. 
Almost everyone non-Catholic. 
All here to remember a man whose life and memory help make The Valley a good place. 

Cat begins carrying a knife when he’s seven-years old….to sharpen his big yellow #2 Ticonderoga pencil. This small folding pocket knife gift from his Grandfather begins a lifelong love of knives. By the time he’s 25, he’s constructing knives. By the time he’s 35 Cat’s knives find homes with real woodsmen and city-boy collectors.

A bright morning Sun lights up the Valley as Aunt Jean arrives at Father Alkire’s place. Her pickup full of contributions for the Valley’s annual Midsummer’s Eve Party.
                  Beer and ice and
                  a hint of original artwork
                  for Newhouse.

1
This is the story of my life.
                  Well…..
The story of my life from my point of view. 
From my point of view at this moment.
This present moment…..
                  Right here.
                  Right now. 

2
Wild Billy the Buddhist Monk is wearing cut-off blue-jeans 
                  a torn t-shirt and 
                  a waitress. 
His robes are in the wash with last night’s bar-rags.
Wild Billy the Buddhist Monk grins.
                  There is no present. 
                  Only past and
                  future.

Structure is one of the tripod legs of poetry.
Fortunately this leg bends.
                  At the knee.
More fortunately modernist free-form poets bend this leg until it breaks.
                  Almost.
Check out the new Haiku tab.
                 Structure as prompt.

The end of an American dream….hitchhiking across the country and back again.