Oddball Swimming

     It could be said that Jonathan was an oddball, but being unusual is almost completely subjective, by definition.  Sure, there were cultural norms, but in Jonathan's opinion and really, just simple reality, the culture into which one was born was not chosen, it simply happened.

     Sure Jonathan had unusual tastes and unusual thought patterns, but the tastes and patterns were all his own.  "Nothing," Jonathan said, "will be imposed upon me without my careful, objective inspection."  It could probably be said that Jonathan was a bit of an embarrassment for his family, being the wealthiest and most highly regarded family in the state and probably the entire east coast.  But Jonathan considered none of this with any regard.  What mattered was honesty, with self and with others, and love for neighbor.

     Jonathan loved the water.  He bathed, usually, three times a day and spent much of his time in the river behind his family's home.  He considered it his family's home, but not so much his.  He really spent the majority of his time outside, around the river.  He had one cousin with whom he truly resonated and who resonated with him. 
     If pressed, Jonathan would have to admit that he too was somewhat embarrassed by his family, but for the opposite reasons. They were far too vain, wealthy and pompous.  He did love them though and respected them when respect was due.  Out of respect and love for his family, Jonathan would float down the river, on his own small boat to the edge of the family property, deliberately not using the main gated entrance to the family estate.
Jonathan could see the true state of the culture that surrounded him.  There were the filthy rich (his family and a handful of others) and the desperately poor (the other 99.9% of those in his part of the country).  Though rich, Jonathan really felt connected to the masses of poor around him, and it was with these that his thoughts continually sat.  He spent the money he had (which was a lot until uncle Reginald put a stop to his generosity) on the poor around him.  And he spent his time finding ways to help them, in any way he could, for he had many connections and acquaintances.
     Then one day he stopped. He wandered off into the back country (the 1000 acres of forest and scrub on his parents estate) and was never seen again.  His cousin took over.

NFL

Martin and John loved football.  So much so, it seemed, that you could say they considered themselves the sport's biggest fans.  Sure they had some differences in opinion on some of the finer points of the game, but all in all, they loved football.

But then one day, it happened.  Martin and John were re-watching the 1976 Super Bowl and enjoying a snack of jalapeño cheese dip and Lil' Smokies, when a thought popped into Martin's head.   "John," he said, with a slight smear of cheese on the left side of his lower lip, "I've been thinking."  John looked at Martin and nodded, saying nothing, but giving his full attention.  "I've been thinking that the entire NFL has really lost sight of what the game is really about.  I mean, really, look back to the  beginning of the game, 1920, Ohio, I mean really, it wasn't even called "the NFL" back then.  But they have changed everything so much.  They've added so much.  I think we should start talking to people and see if we can turn things around and get it back to it used to be."

John looked and Martin, paused and then told him that he whole heartedly agreed.  It was settled, Martin and John were going to reform the NFL.  After all Martin had actually been employed by the league at one time. Sure it was many years back and his role was simply that of a janitor, but, in his mind, he was "one of the guys."

The following year was a strenuous one.  The two men spent countless hours writing, calling, lecturing and countless conversations on those things they recognized as erroneous within the NFL and how they could go about fixing them.  The response was both good and bad.  The was a fairly sizable contingent that fully agreed with them, but didn't have the tenacity to give much support.  And needless to say, the NFL authorities were less than enthused over these new efforts.

After countless phone calls, letters and emails, Martin and John got their chance.  The President, Vice President and board of trustees for the NFL agreed to meet with them.  They both were flown out to Germantown, OH, the state where it all began.  But Martin and John were in for a surprise.  As they entered the stadium, they found all of their letters, emails and recordings of their lectures on a table in front of them.  The president of the league looked at them and asked one question, "Is this your material?" Martin had to confess that it was.  A very large man with no neck and a bottle of lighter fluid then lit the entire table on fire and left the stadium.

It was one week later that Martin ran an advertisement in the local newspaper.  "Wanted, powerful athletes for the Original National Football League, call 1-800-555-1234, ask for Martin."

Choices

Martin woke.  An unusual circumstance, wakening is, especially since Martin did not remember falling asleep.  The last thing he could remember was sitting in philosophy class, listening to a fellow student espousing a critical reading of Duns Scotus.

But there Martin was, waking up.  Opening his eyes, he did not recognize his surroundings.  Granted, there was not much to recognize, as the floor, walls and ceiling were all stark white and Martin wore only his tighty whiteys.  Turning to his right, Martin identified his clothes, nicely folded in a stack on the floor.  Rubbing his face, Martin looked up, to be momentarily startled by the presence of a very unkempt, disheveled and generally grubby old man, his hands wrapped in bloody bandages, sitting on a folding chair, looking at him.  “Hello Martin”, the old man said. “Uh, hello back,” Martin responded, not wanting to be rude.  “The way I see it”, the old man continued, “you have two choices. You can crawl through tube number one or through tube number two.”  Martin merely looked at the old man, completely perplexed.

Turning to his left, the lights came on.  Martin immediately recognized two rather long fiberglass “tubes”, approximately 24 inches in diameter.  Looking back to his left, the old man continued. “The real rub here though is that neither tube offers a pleasant trip.  The first tube is nearly half full of animal excrement and tube number two has about six inches of broken glass in it.  The way I see, you’re pretty much stuck with unpleasant one or unpleasant two. Though, once you get out the other end of the tube, you can exit the door to get outside, which, I’m assuming you want.”

Martin looked at the old man for a moment then looked back at the tubes.  “That's all I’m saying, and I’m not saying anymore.”  He sat for quite a while, deep in confusion and uncertain as to what to do.  Then it dawned on him.  Martin stood up, put on his clothes, his typical white t-shirt, blue jeans, and sneakers.  He then stepped up on top of the two tubes, walked the length and left the room.

BB's

Charles was finally able to get the barrel of the shotgun into his mouth.  It was a real stretch, but he did it.  Now, sitting on the couch, in only his socks, he managed to get his toe on the trigger.  One slight push and he left a terrible mess for the poor guy that would find him three hours later.

Wallace limped as he walked.  It had only been six blocks, yet his ankle was killing him (not literally, though). It had been 3 months and he consistently used the BB gun on his ankle.  The gun had been a gift from his uncle, (“a boy should know how to use a gun”, he said), and Wallace used it, every day, twice a day, to shoot himself in the ankle, in the exact same spot.  Why, he could not be sure.  But at least he was consistent.

“I’m starting to feel and all I feel is sad,” he said with a flat voice.  This thought and the bitter taste of metal were the last two experiences he would have.  But that last second of existence lasted an eternity, as he pondered the futility of mankind’s efforts.  Not that everything was futile.  Even something as insignificant as the giving away of a water bottle on that hot day in August was not futile.  It was the money, the entertainment, the bright and shiny things of distraction that caught and held the attention of so many, for so long, that really bothered him.

He sat on the sidewalk and held his head.  Sweat ran in beads into his eyes and his stomach felt like lead.  He had no choice but to walk another 17 blocks, as the previous 17 blocks only took him away from his home.  His socks were soggy, his ankle ached and the taste of the mornings bitter coffee would not leave him.  He lifted his head and looked upon the teeming masses that passed by on the opposite side of the street, all oblivious to his plight.  And Wallace knew all too well that none of them cared.

Mac-n-cheese and Peas

Walter pulled out his baseball bat and thumped Lucius on top of the head.  And Lucius, being the sensitive type, crumpled with the blow, dropping like a sack of soggy flour.  In Walter’s defense, it was a very nice bat, hardwood, with a signature from Ken Griffey, Jr.

              Walter was sitting on the couch, eating a bowl of peach yogurt when Lucius sat up, holding his head.  “Good God, my head feels terrible,” Lucius muttered to himself.  “Oh, that’s too bad,” Walter responded, sounding genuinely concerned. “What’s for dinner tonight?” he continued, in the same breath.  Lucius stood up, staggered at bit, but caught himself.  “Uh, I was thinking, umm,… I was thinking about making mac-n-cheese,” Lucius said, his voice quivering a bit.  “You like peas with that, right?”

Lucius wobbled into the kitchen.

The second blow came during dinner.  Lucius had just placed his first bite of peas into his mouth when Walter, in one fluid motion, swung his bat out, from behind his back, with his left hand, and caught Lucius directly on the back of the head.  Lucius' head unceremoniously landed in his noodles.  Within a couple of minutes, he lifted his head up, delicately removed a noodle from his nose and groaned.  “Something wrong?” Walter spouted, through a mouthful of peas.  “I don’t think it’s anything,” Lucius groaned, “it’s just that my head has been hurting lately.”

The next morning, emerging from their respective bedrooms, Lucius leaned against the wall, rubbing his left temple. “Are you still complaining about your head?” Walter sludged, sounding annoyed.

Lucius’ right eye developed a twitch.

The purpose of shorts

After the third time of Gene running into the wall, a collective groan simultaneously escaped the throats of all those present.  It would have been funny if it weren’t so obviously painful.  But Gene simply got up adding took off running on the opposite direction.
This was supposed to be a basketball game, but when Gene emerged from the locker room wearing his shorts on his head and only his jock strap on his nether regions, the game never really got started, the immediate comedy of the situation prevented any modicum of order.
At the start, when teams were being decided, Gene grabbed the ball and started running, and hadn't stopped since.  Except for the time the corner of the bleacher caught him at groin level.  But within a moment, Gene was running again.
Initially, the others were shouting things like,  "put your shorts on right,  uncover your eyes, watch where your going", but Gene insisted that there were no shorts and that he could see perfectly fine.
But it was the backboard pole that finally did him in.  Gene had just picked himself up from tripping over the first step of the bleacher, when he had reached top sprint speed and run square into the post.  The hollow bong the emanated from his head stopped everyone in their tracks, including Gene. He had finally done it.  Gene stopped running.
Four of his friends, each on a limb, carried him off the court.

The Snap

Bob snapped.  It couldn't have come at a less opportune time, but come it did.  Bob, as chairman of the local Toastmasters branch in Idionville, was often invited to speak at various events, usually focused on generally ambiguous motivations.

But this time was different.  The local chapter of Manure Sculptures of America had invited him to speak on freedom of artistic expression. As he began his very typical process of fabricating his talk, the words flowed, the ideas came as a fountain and he generated his typical thirty minute talk.  Bob lay down for sleep that night, the mind that generated thirty minutes of inanity, now was focused on the upcoming Superbowl, all thoughts of motivational manure, gone.

Bob woke the next morning, refreshed, distracted and merely looking forward to completing his motivational talk for that afternoon being completed.  As he drove to work that morning, he ran through the notes of his talk, mentally, still formed and driven for excellency by his years of Toastmaster training.  Inane the subject may be, Bob would still deliver a rousing, moving, motivational talk, so he supposed.

Entering the oversized facility that afternoon, Bob was continually assaulted by the smell of manure and the calloused handshakes of far too many brown fingernailed artists.  Following a brief introduction by the president and founder of the MSA, Bob mounted the stage and took his place behind the podium, a brown podium, nonetheless.

As the words began to flow, the heat from the overhead lights began to feel a little to overpowering.  Bob looked across the crowed, numbering easily over 300, sweaty foreheads and twiddling, browned fingers.  And then it happened. Bob choked on his own spit, cleared his throat and deviated from his well-rehearsed speech. He snapped.

The next 22 minutes were a blur as Bob flew off the handle, ad libbed and verbal assaulted every form of artistic license of which he could conceive.  He attacked the ridiculous medium that most art took.  He ridiculed the mockery of all this truly artistic in the American mindset of creativity, caricature and novelty.  He briefly considered urinating in a jar and placing a small statue of the Buddha therein, to declare it a creative outlet, but then thought better of the idea, Mapplethorpe be damned.

By the time the police had arrived, Bob had slipped into his happy place and was quoting Shakespeare.