Preview

Here's an excerpt from something I'm working on:

. . . you have to know that in that time and place, they were Ma and Pa.  Most everybody's parents, unless they were thought to be putting on airs, were Ma and Pa.  Baths were taken on Saturday nights.  You went to church on Sunday mornings.  Yes you did.  Public schools were mostly walked to, had one classroom and two outhouses.  Catholic kids, though, were most likely to go to St. Michael's.  Several rooms.  Indoor plumbing.  Hail Mary, full of mackerel.  We all got along fine and settled minor differences with fistfights.

   In our little school, Miss Nedra Quartz held sway over the eight grades, or as many grades as had students in a given year.  She was it.  Teacher, nurse, theatrical director, janitorial overseer (we kids were the janitors), cop.  Palest woman I ever saw, when she wasn't red with rage, which was fairly often.
   And yes, we did walk to school.  Just a mile and a half for me, through snow and rain and dazzlements of all sorts, for a few years.  Then, Miss Quartz's brother bought a station wagon which became our schoolbus.  Comfy, but without dazzlement.  Unheard now, the curses of blackbirds, the scat-song blessings of bob-o-links.  Un-sniffed, the  wild roses in fencerows, as we traveled the graveled and dusty distance in a wood-sided Ford, assuming everybody in the whole world liked DDE, DDT, and Wonder Bread . . .     ~ Ralph Murre

SECOND REWRITE: the storyteller

FIRST REWRITE (rewritten) Well, O.K. SECOND REWRITE:
So I'm laid up a little, you might say, since I scuffled some with Eldred comin' outa Buddy G's 'round closing, what with the ice on the walk & all. Now, Eldred's a kind of an ass, but ever since Fat Allen's got missin' somewheres, he's the only one of 'em left, 'cept for Bickner. So Eldred feels kinda bad 'bout gettin' the best a me, or somethin', an he comes up t' my flat, gets me some supper. Brings pints of peppermint & blackberry. That's how y' know he feels bad or he'd a just brung Aristocrat. That's what he gen'ly drinks, cuz he thinks the name of it puts him somewheres in the upper crust. He even asked Little Bickner t' come over & that's who we figured it was at the door, thank y' Jesus, cuz Eldred's bin tellin' me some kinda tale ain't got no end to it at all, see?
He comes back in the room an' "Hey," he sez, "what was at th' door," he sez, "it ain't Lil Bickner, it was Magdalene. She sez come right now, Lil Bickner's hurtin' some. So I'll jez finish my story an' we . . ."
Well, I can't hardly say nothin'. but I'm tryin' to rise up from outa my chair, tryin' t' get Charlie L.'s old cane, what I won offa him, under me. Eldred sees I'm aimin' to go. ". . . yeah, but my story," he sez, "now where was I?"
"What happened to Little Bickner?!!!" I sez, in that kinda way where y' could see I wasn't just askin' t' pass the time.
"Oh, I dunno, Ralph" he comes back at me as he sits him down in that lazy boy I bought offa Suzy when Fat Allen got missin', "somethin' 'bout down th' block, somethin' 'bout that crazy fella down there, but hey, that ain't my story . . . doncha wanna hear th' end to my story? It's just Magdalene at th' door, it ain't Lil Bickner, an b'sides," he sez, "his story's bout over, sounds like."
Well, I can't get the damn cane under me nohow, so I settle back down. Pour me a little bitta that blackberry.

~ Ralph Murre

THE ORIGINAL:
hey
what was at the door
it ain't Little Bickner
it was Magdalene
she says come right now
Little Bickner's hurtin some
so I'll finish my story an we . . .
yeah but my story
now where was I?
oh I don't know
somethin bout down the block
that crazy fella
but hey that ain't my story
doncha wanna hear th'end
to my story?
just Magdalene at the door
it ain't Little Bickner
an b'sides his story's bout over
sounds like

Not a dream, exactly, but having just fallen asleep, I woke at two o'clock with this little monologue running around my head. I jotted it down exactly as I saw it, heard it, and went right back to sleep. I have no idea who these characters are, but if you know anyone named Magdalene and Little Bickner, you might want to look in on them this morning. ~ Ralph Murre

and thanks again

photo by S. Auberle

On a Tuesday, I guess it was, m'pardner & I rode down Deuce of Clubs Avenue and right into Show Low, when out of the clear blue Arizona sky I began t'feelin' a mite uneasy. Too many good eats, we reckoned. Tethered the horses 'n' set up camp at the local Holiday Inn Express. A sleepless night led to morning light which revealed my already ample belly swelled to about double its normal size and me, some kinda UNcomfortable.

Well, we saddled up and made the short ride to the nearest emergency room, where they shoved a tube up my nose & down my throat, which had roughly the same effect as we'd get stickin' a bloated cow -- it ain't all that pretty, but it works. Then they proceded to take a bunch of high-falutin' photos of my innards. An obstruction of the bowels 's what they showed. Surgery 's what I needed.

Now, I gotta thank some folks who made it possible f'me to be home alive 'n' writin' t'y'all today: first, the ER staff of Summit Healthcare, then, Dr. Burke De Lange & his ace surgical team, and then, the entire Summit Nursing & tech staff, all of whom must have come from up around Lake Woebegone, 'cause they're ALL way above average.

Thanks, too, to the several of you who caught wind of these developments as they unfolded and kept me under the cozy blanket of your prayers, your good thoughts, and your good vibes. Much appreciated, all around.

The biggest "Thank You", though, is reserved for m'pardner and friend, who mostly dragged me to the hospital and then hovered for a long week, like an angel with wings of light. Thank y'kindly, Miss Sharon.

~ Ralph Murre

and now, a story

The Language

So this medium-sized black bear walks into a bar (Lyle’s Dugout, just behind the ballpark, on 17th) and the bartender asks, “What’ll you have?”, and the bear, Lucien, orders a shot of blackberry brandy and a Hamm’s beer chaser. They get to talking, the bear and Rod, the bartender. Small talk at first, sports mostly. It depresses Lucien, who is upset about teams named for animals, particularly The Bears. The Cubs. He hates Chicago anyway, especially since a cop once roused him when he was trying to hibernate in an underground parking garage down near the Art Institute. “You’ll never catch me in that town again,” says the bear, “at least not in autumn.”

Rod sympathizes, being a Packer fan, but warns under his breath that his boss was born and raised in the Big Windy, and will tolerate no talk against it, no matter your species. “He threw out a lion just the other day for a remark about Mayor Daley. Hmmm . . . I dunno which Mayor Daley.”

“Well, I’d better drink up and get out then,” says Lucien, but Rod explains that Lyle’s in the back room, doing his books, and couldn’t hear over the music anyway (a polka, In Heaven There is No Beer, by Frankie Yankovic). He returns to polishing a few glasses and the bear moodily nurses what remains of his draft. Eventually, he asks for another round and says, “Tell me Rod, your people came from where? Poland maybe, Germany, the Czech Republic?”

“Oh, ya. Danzig, or Gdansk, or whatever the latest bunch in power decides to call it.”

“And you can speak the language?”

“No. Hell no. A dozen words, maybe. My grampa and gramma, they came over and they could speak a coupla languages, but no English. And then my pa, he wanted nothing to do with the old ways. The war and all. Nope – of course, I can cuss and ask for a few kindsa food – but that’s about it.”

“Yes. And you’ve got kids?”

“Five; mostly grown. And two grandkids already. Here, I got pictures.”

“Any of the kids know the language at all?”

“Just my daughter, Katrin. She learned in college, and then went to the old country for a semester. Looked up some family. There’s a lotta books . . .”

“That’s just it,” Lucien sighs deeply, as bears will, “there are a lot of books. Yours is a written language, rich in literature. You can skip a couple of generations and your kids can just go back to it any time they want. Learn it in college. Get credit, even.

“A bear, on the other hand, has only an oral tradition with which to connect. In this part of the world, we too felt the pressure to fit in. A lot of us chose not to be jailed in game preserves. Eventually, we stopped telling the old stories in the old language, and now there’s almost no one left who can teach our children, and many want to learn, want to say ‘I Am a Bear!’, but haven’t the words. A sad thing, and like you and your father, I am partly to blame. For too long, I tried to deny my Ursine nature, my very Bearness.

“Ah, but I gotta go,” says Lucien, standing to leave after a long pause, “baamaa pii.”

“Ya, later,” answers Rod, wiping another glass, “do widzenia.”

~ Ralph Murre