PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

Years ago I wrote a poem in appreciation of Dad Jokes…

being a Dad and a PopPop it’s something I do on my family’s behalf…

It’s one way to teach my children and grandchildren how to have fun

how to smile…how to laugh.

It has been a responsibility I’ve always taken seriously…

using humor and Dad Jokes to give my family a lift…

once again…no need to thank me family…consider it a gift!

But humor is not easy to teach…much to this Dad and PopPop’s surprise 

for many of my Dad Jokes have been met with moans and groans…

and a rolling of the eyes.

Through the years, however, I’ve remained unperturbed knowing…

If this Dad Joke didn’t make them laugh…didn’t give them a thrill…

I’m sure the next one…or the next one…or, perhaps, the next one will.

When I ask: Why did the man who crushed cans all day hate his job?

I can already see my family stressing…

then groan and roll their eyes when I answer:

Because he found it soda pressing.

I believe humor was hiding in my children and grandchildren

and that my slew of Dad Jokes freed it…

like when I told them Deborah asked me to put ketchup on the grocery list…

but then neither of us could read it.

With every Dad Joke I noticed my children and grandchildren 

looking for the nearest open door…

“Dad! PopPop!.” They’d scream. “Please stop! We can’t take it anymore.”

But every now and then…peeking out from behind the moans…

Is that a smile that I see?

For a life-long teller of Dad Jokes…that’s always been good enough for me.

I have proudly watched throughout the years…

how humor in my children and grandchildren have grown…

to the point where they now come up to me and tell me Dad Jokes of their own.

And as I groan, roll my eyes and laugh…

a tear invariably drops from my eye…

for Dad Jokes…after all these years….have a way

to make this old man cry.

As we prepare to leave the mountains…I admit…I have no shame

for I’ve also been preparing…to play the alphabet game.

It’s a game we’ve played since our children were little…

on our trips from the mountains to the sea…

One person names something we’ve done that starts with the letter A…

and we keep going until we reach the letter Z.

It’s a wonderful family game…as anyone whose ever played it knows

and to get an edge for when we leave tomorrow…Alphabet game…here goes.

Asheville, Arrow, Birds, Bonnie, Bryan, Cherokee, Deer, Elk, a Freeze

(You see by getting this head start…I’m going to win this game with ease).

Games played in the cabin on a picnic or on the porch in the afternoon. 

Hikes, Indigenous, Jelly from Momma’s Boy, Killers of the Flower Moon.

Leaves of many colors, the Moon, the Mountains, 

Nantahala, the Oconaluftee River all aglow

Poplar trees, a Quart of cider, Raccoons, 

a Steam engine, playing in the Snow..

Turkeys in the yard, Umbrella’s in the rain, Vegan fest

Waterrock Knob with sunsets that astound

X…a letter we ignore….Yellow colors all all around.

Z is another letter that is difficult but I have this one in the bag…

in the mountains we traveled on many roads with curves that zig and zag.

There you have it I am ready for out 2 day trip back home…

I only hope that Deborah…doesn’t take the time to read this poem.

(Of course there are no winners or losers…that is just a myth…

The real treasure of this game….is having someone to play it with.)

I did not post a poem yesterday…

I’m sure some of you were concerned…even though nobody inquired….

to set your minds at ease…I didn’t forget…I am not sick…nor have I retired…

It wasn’t from lack of inspiration or a dearth of creativity…

It all comes down to sleeping in…a biscuit…raspberry jam…and the legend of a tree.

On our way to North Carolina we always stop in Athens, Georgia

for the opportunity to enjoy

A breakfast of our favorite biscuits topped with raspberry jam…

at a restaurant called Momma’s Boy.

We have to get there early…or in long lines we have to wait….

and after driving 10 hours the day before…we slept in…and were running late.

And what would make us even later…was our desire to stop and meet

‘The tree that owns’ itself which stands at the end of the last Athen’s cobblestone street. 

We stopped at the tree and still made it to Momma’s Boy on time…

just like we diagramed…

we had the first 2 biscuits they made that morning 

topped with their delicious raspberry jam…

It wasn’t till we were on the road headed for our North Carolina home

That I thought about then remembered…I hadn’t posted a poem.

How I had somehow upset the balance of nature…disturbed its symmetry…

by allowing a tree, a biscuit and some raspberry jam to take precedence over poetry…

I’ll try to get back to writing a poem a day…that is my goal…what I’ve always planned….

unless there’s a Momma’s Boy in North Carolina…in which case…

I hope you’ll understand.

THE SQUIRREL EPISODE

First off…I don’t hate squirrels…they have a kind of rodent charm…

although they monopolize the bird feeder…I do not wish them any harm.

Squirrels and I we are all creatures on this planet…in our yard they are free to roam

but that is where our relationship ends…we don’t invite them into our home.

Deborah and I were enjoying a lovely, lazy, slow afternoon when suddenly we both jumped

after hearing from inside our chimney…a crash…a bang…a thump.

“It can’t be Santa Claus.” I said. “It’s August…much too soon.”

“I think it might be an animal…a squirrel…or a raccoon.”

The damper was closed so we waited a moment until I heard Deborah shout,

“He’s scratching…there’s an animal inside our chimney and he’s trying to get out!”

I thought this word was used only in cartoons but I heard my self yelling EEK!

before running over to the chimney so I could take a peek.

“I think it’s probably a squirrel.” I said 

knowing in a battle of wits with a squirrel…I could not match him

still I ran around the house looking for something anything…any way to catch him.

I came back with a butterfly net…in hindsight I probably should have taken the broom,

Because when I returned Deborah was screaming…

“He’s out…and he’s running around the room!”

He ran into the French doors…then against a window…I took this as a plus…

It seemed as surprised as we were to see him…he was just as surprised to see us.

With butterfly net in hand I felt my courage soar…

as that squirrel was trying to get out a closed window…I opened the French door. 

That squirrel took one look at me with my raised butterfly net

and Deborah clapping her hands yelling “Shoo…shoo…shoo.”

then seeing the open French door…knew exactly what to do.

I believe if he had a hat he would have tipped it…before scooting out the door…

In all my years of squirrel watching…I’d never seen one laugh before.

With the crisis over we got back to enjoying our life…

lovely, lazy and slow….

but I’m keeping that butterfly net close at hand…

because…

you never know.

When in the mountains at our cabin during our summer stays

we are happy to honor and to celebrate a host of special days.

If we’re blessed to be in the mountains enjoying the clouds the sun the sky

we happily celebrate some special days that fall in June and July 

June 7th we eat donuts on National donut day…the fulfillment of a dream

July 7th we we eat chocolate and July 16…ice cream..

(Sure birthdays are important when we eat cake and gather all our troops

but summer in the mountains we celebrate our three most cherished food groups.)

We never visit the mountains in February, however, from NC winters we stay away

so we never in the summer get to truly celebrate Pancake Day.

We can celebrate with pancakes in Florida…but that always makes me grouse…

because we cannot celebrate in North Carolina…at Joey’s Pancake House. 

Joey’s sits in Maggie Valley and since 1966- the moment of it’s birth

Joey’s has been serving the most delicious pancakes on the Earth.

Our children and our grandchildren have eaten pancakes at Joey’s…

Why…because we cared…

and traditions only become traditions when traditions can be shared.

So this summer Deborah and I decided to throw the calendar away…

And on July 21st we celebrated our own National Pancake Day.

Eat your heart out Perkins, Denny’s, Bob Evans and I-hop

I had two large peach pancakes covered in powdered sugar with a dollop of whip cream on top.

And now that we understand these National days…we are allowed to tweak…

there’s a good chance we’ll be celebrating National Pancake Day..

a second time 

next week.

The bad news is we have yellow jackets in our yard.

A colony of which I whole-heartedly disapprove.

The good news is these yellow jackets showed me…I can still bust a move.

A quick fact about yellow jackets…if into their nest you drop…

Yellow jackets start stinging…and yellow jackets do not stop.

I felt a sting on my finger…and at this point foolishly thought their attack was complete…

forgetting it takes a little longer to feel pain from my legs and my feet.

It was when the pains met in my brain…one unlucky happenstance…

that I being to panic…and I began to dance.

It was as if M. C. Hammer’s ‘You Can’t Touch This’ 

was emanating from speakers in the ground…

My arms were flailing…my feet were kicking…I was jumping all around.

Another quick fact about yellow jackets…I imagine it’s part of their upbringing…

They are relentless…even after they chased me off their nest…

they kept coming…they kept stinging.

Once inside the safety of my house with Benadryl in my system

and ointment on my sores…Deborah smiled at me saying,

“In all they years I’ve known you…I never saw you dance like that before.”

“You were a blend of dances.” She chuckled. “Ballet, Tango, Cha Cha…

and you made the dances overlap…a little Samba…some Salsa moves…

why I think I even saw some tap.

“Do you think the neighbors saw me?” I asked.

Deborah smiled, “Oh, without a doubt…not only were they watching…

but they had their cameras out.”

Seeing a smile on my face that evening Deborah asked what I was thinking about

“Oh,” I said, “not much.”

I was just thinking how some yellow jackets showed the whole neighborhood…

I still had dance moves…You Can’t Touch.

One of our favorite Christmas traditions in our home…our habitat..

is to write everyone’s name on a separate sheet of paper and throw them in a hat.

On Thanksgiving the hat is shaken then passed around to everyone on the floor…

who pick the name of the person they’ll be buying a present for.

It’s a wonderful tradition born out of the desire to teach the meaning of giving 

and the need for thrift…

as everyone only buys one present and everyone receives only one gift.

I’ve been known in my family to do a little magic and some pranks…this is true…

and this story is about the one Christmas I deftly combined the two.

Since it’s supposed to be a secret…the name you are assigned…

in the hat we passed around one Thanksgiving all the names inside it…were mine!

You see I was in charge of writing the names and passing the hat around too…

which made this prank and unexpected magic trick easy for me to do.

The hat was passed…the names were picked…my plan was working beautifully…

each family member opened their paper, read the name…and secretly smiled at me.

I would have eventually told the truth that night…at least that’s the story I like to tell…

but I never got the chance because it seems the members of my family can’t keep a secret very well.

I wasn’t there to hear their conversations…which, in retrospect, I am glad…

when Deborah found out she had me…

and all our children.. found out that they had Dad.

I had another hat ready…which, of course, we passed around then…

and I smiled wondering if my children…would ever trust me again…

Yesterday as is our tradition we passed the hat…

it went smoothly…as it always does

And I smiled…as I always do…

thinking about….

the Christmas that almost was.

The other day I wrote a poem after being surprised to meet……

as I began my morning walk…a guitar stain in the street.

Well, it appears looking that a stain in the street is similar to looking at the clouds…

There are so many interpretations it would make Hermann Rorschach proud.

Where I saw a guitar (perhaps influenced by listening to Walter Parks play his under a crescent moon)…another friend saw something else…a teddy bear…holding a balloon.

Still another friend, (I imagine perhaps a fan of the Grateful Dead) 

also saw a teddy bear but with a mushroom growing out its head.

Finally another person looking at this stain…unbeknownst to me…

saw another teddy bear…this one praying beneath a tree.

So I took another look at my stain…and smiled…

their interpretations were not at all bizarre…

for now that they had mentioned it…I could see a teddy bear in my guitar.

In fact…the more I looked at that stain…in the street…innocently lying there…

my mind it kept changing back and forth…from guitar back to teddy bear.

And I thought…this just another lesson nature is teaching me…

how we all can look at the same thing…yet see it differently?

How we need to listen more to one another…

because the truth is not alway easy to ascertain….

How there are more than one way to look at things…

just like there's more than one way to view a stain…

And although I can see your teddy bears in my guitar…

(he looks a little like Winnie the Pooh)

I believe if you see him praying, 

carrying a balloon 

or with a mushroom growing from his head

Mr. Rorschach would like to talk to you!

It happened again yesterday…and, as usual, took me by surprise…

A reminder in my life of how rapidly time flies…

About halfway through our morning walk..we decided to take a break…

to listen and watch the birds from a pier overlooking a lake.

The blanket of night was lifting and the morning was beginning to stir…

when a young man out for an early jog ran by and said, “Excuse me, sir.”

He continued happily on his way while I was left standing there….

on that pier overlooking the water with the word ‘SIR’ hanging in the air.

When did I become old enough to be a sir?

Was there a particular year or month or day?

I tried to erase the word as it hovered…but it would not go away.

I should have heard his footsteps from my perch next to the shore…

but even though my ears are so much larger now…I don’t hear good anymore.

Although he was now out of my view…I had this sudden whim…

to leave the serenity of the lake…and take off after him.

To see the look of surprise on his face as this old man…wrinkled and gray…

says, “Excuse me, sir.” as I smile…pass him by…then continues on my way.

Then I looked down at my legs and said to myself, “I can’t run on these.”

because as I’ve grown a little older I’ve had two surgeries on my knees.

I realized trying to run after him with bad knees would not be too bright…

besides I couldn’t remember after he left the pier…did he turn left…or right.

Anyway he had such a huge lead on me…I would be starting too far behind him…

and with my eyesight being as bad as it is…I’d probably never find him.

So as we finished our walk enjoying the clouds as they floated in the sky of blue…

I realized there and then…there was nothing I could do!

There’s nothing wrong with being a sir…I told myself…

(on this…I’m still waiting for my heart and mind to agree)

but my eyes, 

my ears 

and my knees…

have not stopped thanking me.