Bears

A front porch in Benson, on NC 50.

 Listen to Lyle Lovett's version of BEARS.

Some folks say there ain't no bears in Arkansas
Some folks never seen a bear at all
Some folks say that bears go around eating babies raw
Some folks got a bear across the hall

Some folks say that bears go around smelling bad
Others say that a bear is honey sweet
Some folks say this bear's the best I ever had
Some folks got a bear beneath their feet

Some folks drive the bears out of the wilderness
Some to see a bear would pay a fee
Me I just bear up my bewildered best
And some folks even see the bear in me

Some folks drive the bears out of the wilderness
Some to see a bear would pay a fee
Me I just bear up my bewildered best
And some folks even see the bear in me

So meet a bear and take him out to lunch with you
And even though your friends may stop and stare
Just remember that's a bear there in the bunch with you
And they just don't come no better than a bear

So meet a bear and take him out to lunch with you
And even though your friends may stop and stare
Just remember that's a bear there in the bunch with you
And they just don't come no better than a bear

No they just don't come no better than a bear

No they just don't come no better than
No they just don't come no better than
No they just don't come no better than a bear

Written by Steven Fromholz • Copyright © BMG Rights Management US, LLC

Mac's "Old Folks" Country Sausage

Found in Mac's General Merchandise on NC 242 between Benson and Dunn.

Not Dark Yet

Shelby Lynne & Allison Moorer

Listen to NOT DARK YET

Shadows are falling and I been here all day

It's too hot to sleep and time is running away

Feel like my soul has turned into steel

I've still got the scars that the sun didn't let me heal

There's not even room enough to be anywhere

It's not dark yet, but it's getting there

Well my sense of humanity is going down the drain

Behind every beautiful thing, there's been some kind of pain

She wrote me a letter and she wrote it so kind

She put down in writin' what was in her mind

I just don't see why I should even care

It's not dark yet, but it's getting there

Well I been to London and I been to gay Paree

I followed the river and I got to the sea

I've been down to the bottom of a whirlpool of lies

I ain't lookin' for nothin' in anyone's eyes

Sometimes my burden is more than I can bear

It's not dark yet, but it's getting there

I was born here and I'll die here, against my will

I know it looks like I'm movin' but I'm standin' still

Every nerve in my body is so naked and numb

I can't even remember what it was I came here to get away from

Don't even hear the murmur of a prayer

It's not dark yet, but it's getting there

Songwriters: Bob Dylan

Not Dark Yet lyrics © Bob Dylan Music Co.

This is one hell of a cover.

Read The Guardian's take

Fleet of Souls

“Feels like

I know you.
That we’ve

Spoken many times.

Feels like

I’ve been here.
That what is

About to unfold

I’ve seen.”

Can’t tell

If it’s my mind

Recalling a movie,

Or my memory

Of what I'd done

Or wanted to do.

What was real?

I don’t know

All the answers.

Just a few.

There’s a hint of fresh basil

Lingering in the hall,
Mingling with garlic. 

Dinner?

I wondered.

Hoped is more like it.

Feels so

Comfortable,

Almost rehearsed.

I felt so at ease

In her presence.

Raven black hair that

Gently touched

Her shoulders.

Hazel eyes that

Witnessed everything.
I wanted to hold her

Until we slept.

Have we met?”

When her eyes

Synced with mine,

I could feel the heat.

“Yes, of course.

Which century did you

have in mind?”

“You pick,” I said.

She turned away

Just for a second.

“I have my favorites.

But we outdid ourselves

In 1869.”

“Really.”

“Don’t you believe me?”

“I want to.”

She took my hand.

“Look at this tiny scar

On your palm.”

I opened my clenched fist

And found a strange mark.

I couldn’t recall

When that had happened.

“I put it there with a quill,”

She said. “I’ve been sorry

About it for a long time.
We had an argument about

One of the men who came

To my restaurant.”

“Where?”

“Bar Harbor.”

“I’ve never been

To Bar Harbor.”

She sighed.
“No, not this trip.
But I remember when

You got off the boat.

Couldn’t avert my eyes.
You were something.”

The sun found

My neck and face,

A different warmth.

Or maybe it was just me

Wanting to be

Alone with her.

Again,

I couldn’t tell

If it was my film

Or someone else’s.

She unlocked a trunk

And took out a thick

Dusty tome

With parchment pages.

“The answers are in here.

But this is the gist.

We are born. Sometimes

Everything works out.
We live that once.

Most of us have to keep at it.
We struggle, and if we don’t

Make it, we return to the fleet of souls,

Where we sail on the sea

Until we’re ready to try again.

That’s where we met the first time.
On deck at sunset.”

“When was that?”

“We were Vikings.”

“Awesome.”

She grinned.

“You want more pot?”

Clarity Never Complained

A pleasant July afternoon

Shifted its focus

With dark, puffy clouds

That spanned the horizon

Like wrinkled sheets.

Faint rumbling out at sea

Threatened a hit and run shower.

Local gardens, though, needed

More than drizzle’s innuendo:

A starched, smarmy pledge,

A blowhard’s bluff,

That broke its promise.

Nature’s calling.
Can you hear it?

Across the bay

A jagged sliver of light

Flashed downward and

Slapped a veteran pine —

An old soldier in the game

Somewhat hunched and wary,

Yet still poised and proud.

TV weather dude with

Capped teeth and wavy hair,

Eager to transfer to sports,

Glanced at the studio screen

With the Doppler feed

And said, “Storm’s coming.”

Though he was wrong again,

Clarity never complained.

A long, black limo,

Last used for a funeral

Snaked into the parking lot

Just a few minutes late.

The candidate, a professional

In the dry cleaning business,

Was nice to look at

If you liked ‘em tall and wiry.

Gary Cooperish

At close range,

A yup and noper,

Never a groper;

But a natural in front

Of the right crowd.

“Today marks the beginning

Of the beginning,”

He said, striding to the podium.

Three of the younger women swooned,

Perhaps like their grandmothers did

When they saw Elvis for the first time

On the Ed Sullivan Show.

Or was it The Beatles?

The candidate’s latest wife

Enjoyed the outburst,

Sensing that

Everything was possible.

The money, the endless train

Of those prodding

And pushing,

Demanding to get aligned

With the future.

It was all working out.
There was nothing

That could

Derail their quest,

Nothing that could

Put a bullet in the head

Of their campaign.

Though the voters

Proved her wrong,

Clarity never complained.

“It was a time of confidences.”

Guy Crowley gazed

Out his apartment window,

Wondering if he should find

Another radio station.
The oldies were okay, for a while,

But some of those folk songs

Drove him kind of nuts.

Guy cut the coupon

Out of the Press Herald.
Wanted: Acting Tutor

For two children, twins,

12 years old. Brunswick.

207 779-3434.

“Calling about the ad,”

Guy said, after taking

A deep breath and

Using the exhale

To make the sound:

His stage voice

Loud and present.

Maybe that was

A factor.
Three days later

He met the mother

For coffee and passed

Inspection, the final hurdle.

Twice a week

For two months

He drove down
To Orr’s Island

And arrived by

9 a.m. Then, in the

downstairs rec room,

Jeff and Jenny Sprague

Gave Shakespeare

A run for his money.

“I don’t have a goal,”

Alice Sprague, the mother,

Had said. “They’re shy.
They don’t have companions.
I believe speaking verse

Will help. What do you think?”

Guy agreed, partly because

He thought it true, and partly

For the 25 bucks an hour Alice

Had mentioned, including lunch.

They were bashful,

No getting around it.
“Read the sonnets out loud,”

Alice had said the first day,

Grabbing her tennis gear

For her daily session

On the Bowdoin campus.

Eventually, Guy

Realized that he

Wasn’t so much a mentor,

As he was the new friend

And part-time sitter.

That’s what had

Actually been arranged.

But the money was good.
Clarity never complained.

Sarah Suzie

Sarah Suzie

Ain’t no floozie

Though she walks home

After ten

Arrested for struttin’

She weren’t doing nuttin’

Undercover cops

Going round the bend

Cause it seems

Ms. Suzie

Is a Radcliffe smoothie

With plenty of zen for yen

And she’s suing the fuzz

Cause they does

What they does

Without thought

Of the what

Or the when

White Diamonds

A mean storm’s coming

Gonna plank the East

Freezing ice, then snow

Gonna be a beast

White diamonds falling

Might just fill a lake

The faster we scrape

The more that we make

Left a farm in Boone

In spring of 92

Nothing much till fall

Joined a highway crew

First winter came hard

But left a clear plan

A lot you can do

With a plow and sand

White diamonds falling

Gonna drown a lake

White diamonds falling

Make no mistake

White diamonds falling

Jusk ask us to scrape

Had a partner clean

The cash box one night

Guess she drove to Maine

A left at the light

No clue why she went

She didn’t go slow

Left us all waiting

For the next big snow

White diamonds falling

But none with a name

White diamonds falling

Make no mistake

White diamonds falling

Just ask us to scrape

Sometimes

Sometimes words add up.

They cipher; they do the math:

Charting the soul’s GPS,

Revealing the path

To the ancient source

That rinses you clean.

So that you might begin again.

But first, you glance in the rear view

From where you’ve come …

The fresh smiles of the great friends

Who nurtured the journey

that you’d lost hope you’d take.

Laughter keeps time with its heart;

Carefree and yet so true.

Like the shy gypsy’s promise

That helped you get through.

Sometimes the words make sense.

They absorb; they even reflect:

Sorting the moments

Into evidence,

Slipping into the present tense

As if it were a warm pool.

Sometimes they’re just words.

You wish you could say so much more.

What it means. How it feels. What IT is.

It’s not the how, what or when …

Shadow elusive, like trying to define Zen.

But one thought does break clear:

Thank you for reading.

A Monet Sampler

Claude Monet — HAULING A BOAT ASHORE, HONFLEUR. 1864.

Claude Monet was 24 when he finished Hauling A Boat Ashore, Honfleur. I wonder if he was well known enough then that Americans, Abraham Lincoln, for instance, had learned of his work. Or perhaps even seen it.

Claude Monet — IMPRESSION, SUNRISE. 1873.

Nine years later Monet completed Impression, Sunrise, and in retrospect that was the intersection of a young genius with his genre. A cousin of Impression, Sunrise, appeared that same year, Sunrise, The Sea.

Claude Monet — SUNRISE, THE SEA. 1873

As it's sometimes said about beverages made from grapes, 1873 was a very good year.

Lucky

I wonder about
taking a stroll
on the streets of Paris
in the mid 1870s, 
stopping for a refreshment,
and choosing a table outside.

A few moments later, 
several men in clothes 
that reveal they are
either sloppy for a living, 
or that they paint, 
or perhaps both,
storm into the cafe,
animated,
chattering,
oblivious of those
watching and hearing.

The group 
brings its drinks
to a table nearby, 
and for an hour, 
you happen to overhear 
Monet, Claude Pissarro, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir
talk shop, politics and life.


That would have been cool. Like going to a London rock club in the 1960s and hearing Jimi Hendrix perform the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in its entirety the same day it was released to the public — with The Beatles in attendance. Rare air.

Claude Monet — RAILWAY BRIDGE AT ARGENTEUIL, 1873.

Claude Monet — PORT 'd AMOUNT ETRETAT. 1873.

Claude Monet — THE PORT OF LE HAVRE, NIGHT EFFECT. 1873.

This is a glimpse of Monet and Impressionism, akin to going to med school for 12 minutes.

In my case, one thing led to another, and if one is headed down a rabbit hole, it's never wasted time if that hare is an art lover.

For a more comprehensive visit with Claude Monet, click here.

Universal Health Scare

By Lisa Friedman/New York Times

WASHINGTON — The average temperature in the United States has risen rapidly and drastically since 1980, and recent decades have been the warmest of the past 1,500 years, according to a sweeping federal climate change report awaiting approval by the Trump administration.

The draft report by scientists from 13 federal agencies, which has not yet been made public, concludes that Americans are feeling the effects of climate change right now. It directly contradicts claims by President Trump and members of his cabinet who say that the human contribution to climate change is uncertain, and that the ability to predict the effects is limited.

“Evidence for a changing climate abounds, from the top of the atmosphere to the depths of the oceans,” a draft of the report states. A copy of it was obtained by The New York Times.

The authors note that thousands of studies, conducted by tens of thousands of scientists, have documented climate changes on land and in the air. “Many lines of evidence demonstrate that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse (heat-trapping) gases, are primarily responsible for recent observed climate change,” they wrote. 

The report was completed this year and is a special science section of the National Climate Assessment, which is congressionally mandated every four years. The National Academy of Sciences has signed off on the draft report, and the authors are awaiting permission from the Trump administration to release it.

Government Report Finds Drastic Impact of Climate Change On U.S.

The excerpt's final nine words ring as ominous as the article's headline— "Awaiting permission from the Trump administration to release it."

Angry? I hope so.

From what we've seen so far in this clown show of a presidency, it's hard to imagine that Trump and his cronies will have an epiphany, "Oh, our bad. Yeah, maybe tens of thousands of scientists have a clue, and we don't."

Instead, those noted experts on everything, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Kellyanne Conway, will trundle into a press room and — this is the gist — remind us that facts are fake, scientists are fake, climate change is fake, and neglect to admit the the report the New York Times received will be tossed into a furnace, perhaps joining phone records between Trump and his boss, Vlad I'm Glad You're Glad Putin. Frying pan. Fire. 

But speaking of furnace, in this instance we're focused on health care. Yours. Mine. The entire planet. In every way, climate change acceptance is the preamble to a truly universal health care strategy.

First, despite what that frivolous ninny Huckabee Sanders will insist, climate change is not a hoax, nor is it a left wing, tree-hugging, tofu-infested, patchouli-scented, I Only Listen to Cat Stevens and 10,000 Maniacs Conspiracy.

How am I so certain?

Science.

Climate Change wasn't invented by a couple of bloggers in a basement with an Instagram account and a bong. Instead, many educated people more curious and intelligent than most have determined what has happened, what is happening, and what will happen. Al Gore was right in 2006 and he's even more right today.

What kind of moron denies climate change? 

Or is this a business decision? 

So the next question is clear — what kind of moron puts greed ahead of life?

Hyperbole?

To deny climate change is simply in tune with another GOP pet peeve — The Affordable Care Act.

But climate change is different. The GOP can (and did) exempt themselves and their staff from the vast changes they failed to pass with Obamacare, as if they knew all along that their health care legislation was bogus. As if to say, "our new legislation is good enough for the American people, but not for us." 

Imagine a Frank Capra Congress where those on the right and left of the aisle work together to give every American the same health care plan that they receive, as elected to the House of Representatives and the Senate. Goose says hi to the Gander.

Not in this country now. Instead it's the ole double standard. Hypocrisy on parade. The tail wagging that damn dog. Again.

Perhaps those who rubber stamp Trump's climate denial believe that a similar we can protect ourselves ploy can be used in regard to the environment. That gets us back to stupid.

If we allow clean air and decent water to become political, we get what we deserve, don't we?

Decisions made in China influence the rest of the world. Just as decisions made in the USA, France, New Zealand. Everywhere. When it comes to the planet, we are in this together.

To paraphrase Joe Lewis: You can run from climate change, but you can not hide.

Health care begins with the environment. And it can end there.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir — BY THE SEASHORE. 1883.

The stare, of course, is priceless, and the character could have been played by Elizabeth McGovern, long before she ambled onto the grounds of Downton Abbey.

There are hints of Cézanne and Van Gogh with the sprinkled use of bright color, a great example of the eye of an impressionist and skill of a portrait painter merged into one. I wonder where Renoir observed this wonderful moment, or was it merely one of his working dreams?

Oops App

Pudgy fog trudges

Into the bay and

Lingers above the links.

Mist rises in odd shapes,

Some forms similar to question marks;

Others tease as they drift,

Like rainbow cotton candy

Eluding sticky fingers at the fair.

In the distance various birds

Blather in the trees,

Their sketchy tweedle duty driven,

Rather than fueled by angst.

They’ve seen this film.

To the east hints of the sun

Peek through the swollen haze.

The morning’s first group arrives

At the 5^th, a water hole, the tough one,

Where par turns an average round

Into legend and triple bogey

Shoves hope into a back pocket.

A tubby customer in a baseball cap

And skin the hue of a Clemson football helmet

Strides to the tee,

Armed with hubris and a 4 iron.

He gazes at the drooping flag on the green,

Lurking some 200 yards away,

And takes a mighty swat.

His Titleist heeds no creed;

It’s a self starter and sails wide of target

Into the gloom of the beckoning murk.

Helmet Boy fusses, fumes, chagrins,

Then plops a fresh ball on the tee.

“This one counts,” he says,
Skulling one low and lean

With such force and luck

That it skips twice across the sludge

And bounds onto the putting surface

A few steps from the cup.
“That’s what I’m talking about.”
Another elastic par on Fantasy Island.

The house lights dimmed

On cue, the cast found

Their places.

Faces ripe and keen,

Sensing, flexing, centered.

Everything an echo

Of the blueprint created long ago

And studied for weeks.

One of the light poles

Shivered on the set,

Swaying back and forth.
Why?
Who knew?

Then, as the narrator

Found his center mark,

A Color Changing Fresnel

Attached to that nervous pole

Blinked in the manner of a stutter

Before going dark.

The pole swayed again,

Then shook loose

From its mooring

With the lethal snap

Of a rattler’s strike.

The apparatus dropped from the sky

Like a bomb

and knocked the narrator

Into the front row.

Two English teachers

From The Maine Girls Academy

Shrieked when the actor’s frame

Fell into their collective lap.

Blood trickled from the

Narrator’s head, and his body

Shook with the vitality of a damp sock.
Several cast members, three techies and

A nurse, who was as close to a doctor

In the house anyone could find,

Gathered round the prone thespian.

Meanwhile,

The assistant stage manager

Retrieved the understudy

From the Green Room,

Where he’d just polished off

The remnants of a birthday cake,

Feeling confident his duties on stage that day,

As always, would be slim.

Ah, the curse of assumption.

A lanky sort with a tiny role in the chorus

Who kind of knew the narrator’s lines,

Took uncertain steps toward his dream,

Perhaps his destiny.

But with so little preparation

And even less warning,

A happy ending seemed a stretch.

Still, the show must go on.

Momma said

There’d be days like this.

When you pour orange juice

On your cereal …

When your umbrella snaps

In half just before a hard rain …

When you write the wrong amount

On your last check after a big dinner at the restaurant …

When you think you can make it

With your car’s gas empty light warning …

When you give the finger

To someone who has a weapon …

When you decide it’s time

To do something about North Korea,

Then realize, “Dang, didn’t mean

To launch 15 missiles.”

Some devices are better than others.
Take the iPhone45 for instance.
It has a special feature.

So did Obama’s iPhone44,

But Obama never used it.

Bush misplaced his device

The weekend of Katrina,

Or, perhaps, iPhone43 would

Have dialed in the mother

of all mulligans.

That’s all we really need sometimes.
A do over.
Another try on a tough par 3.
A wiser rehearsal tactic.

Or in some cases,

A dial we can press

To make it all right.

An Oops App.