Attribution: Photo by Olya P on Unsplash
By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper suffering through the unexpected discovery of notes he wrote 73 years ago as he was waiting for his Army discharge and enrollment at the UW “J” School.
He will not be sharing the notes with Phyllis as they would demand excessive explanation, but he thanks his dear old mother for having saved them along with other personal junk, and he would like to ask her how she managed to tolerate such a self-absorbed son?
Apparently that is one of the things mothers must do–accept offspring arrogance and conceit, which may or may not be a promotion up from changing dirty diapers.
Anyway, thanks, Mom. Now tell me how to deal with myself back when I weighed 135 pounds, had the dichotomous confidence of a lion – rabbit and saw the world as a soccer ball to be kicked through goals as I saw them?
The keeper offers counseling to those who might find themselves suddenly face to face with their distant past: “It is, or ‘was’ you and it won’t last. Within several years of his introspective rambling, the keeper had a wife and five kids, and was riding the Ed Gein media blitz to get his first post UW newspaper job in Stevens Point at $85 a week.”
And as the cliché goes, “The rest is history!” –wonderful history in the keeper’s estimation, and he may eventually show the old notes to Phyllis: she is a mother and will understand how it is or was with sons.
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