Enga mellom fjella

No one in my family's a carpenter

No one in my family's a carpenter

D designed glass, drank and beat the kids, planted beets and pointed out each cardinal that passed by over his hollyhocks and the walkway he had painted red.

C baked bread. 10 buns in the oven. How many were truly D's she never said. I suppose they all were. C kept busy: pots of split pea soup and everyone lined up for hugs to wash in the tub on Fridays.

An only homely child, B spoke German and Creek and played Santa long after he was declared about-to-be-dead. The poison in his blood took 20 years after he crushed his liver in an oil rig. I resemble him.

G loved violets. Her family joined B and G in the 20s, before or after the KKK (who knows, they never told and now they're all dead). They lived in Oklahoma with herring on New Years and peach cobbler for desert.

Whatever sins they-all practiced died with them. They did not rise again. We-all waited 3 days to make damn sure. Not to worry. No one in my family was ever a carpenter. Jesus was they say; we're not related.

© 2009 Kåre Enga [165.449] 2009-02-22

"No one in my family's a carpenter" was the prompt from last night's reading by Michael Dumanis. I wrote this prose down quickly so I'd have something to post. My Muse has taken a mini-vay-kay. As for what it means ... that's up to you the reader to figure out.

This is a fiction of truth and rumors (what is really true matters little this many years later) wove around my grandparents. Their initials have been changed. I chose D,C,B,G as they rhyme nicely.

BAA BAA BAA:

I ain't no sheep.

I walked struggled up Sentinel yesterday afternoon. Nice sunny mild weather. But, as partyof5 had warned me, the path was muddy, icy and not fun. My vertigo got to me ... real bad. But I made it to the top of the M this time, where I proceeded to meet folks from Brasil. As I explained to the older gentleman no português: eu não posso fala-lo bem. Too bad he didn't speak English. They're from São Paulo.

Their three little ones were like mountain goats. Me? I barely made it part way down until I met up with Julie who by talking with me and showing me where to step helped me focus on the path and calmed me the rest of the way.

I'm fine once I'm on flat bottom land.

Folks jog up and down that ferociously steep mountain hill. I've done it twice now. This spring I have to climb Mt. Jumbo. Ain't that gonna be fun!

Last night I caught a reading of "New Lakes": Michael Dumanis of Russian heritage (he speaks it fluently) who grew up near where I did back East and now resides in Cleveland. He shared how his mom dropped "I have cancer" casually into a conversation. I mentioned how my mother said "We've made our funeral plans" while I was eating moo goo guy pan at my sisters. It's a cultural thing. I took notes of odd and wonderful phrases. Like: Catalpa! Catalpa! Catalpa! and the war among lambs ears and nasturtiums. I learned how a simple phrase like the woods are burning has a historical and cultural context not understood by modern urbanites.

The other reader was Sabrina Orah Marks who has most interesting prose poems about Beatrice and Walter B. I don't know if I should categorize these as strange, surrealistic or both. I bought a copy of Walter B.'s Extraordinary Cousin Arrives for a Visit & Other Tales (the chapbook itself is exquisite) so maybe I'll explain it later. Her characters are looking at their world with "new eyes" and this forces the reader to do likewise. Ms. Sabrina hails from Brooklyn so that lends to a different viewpoint as well.

BLOGVILLE

My "average" blog reader is: Married Female, age 25-39, with Some College education. Their income level is $20,000 to $29,999. Of course, I would say that reflects the site average fairly well! Still ... opposite gender, young enough to be my daughter, needs to finish her education (daddy speaking here) and makes more money than I do. I'm so glad I can reach out to folks who aren't like me. An audience of one would be so disheartening. It truly would be.

Montana: 27º at 10:00

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