228. Viewpoints

“Hey, want to go for a walk?” C.W. came bounding in almost breathless looking like an ad for L.L. Bean, complete with red plaid shirt and classy hiking shoes. He resembled an outdoor George Clooney. We were spending a long holiday weekend at our farm and he was primed and ready for action, probably a little bored as well.

“Can’t,” I said.

“Why not? You aren’t doing anything.”

Actually I was writing but forget that. “Can’t walk around here,” I said. “Deer season.”

“What?”

“Deer season. There are folks that would shoot an alien just to have their picture with your body in the county paper.”

He plopped onto a couch. “May I say,” he began, “that your species is a bit weird?”

“Pray do,” I said. “Just don’t include me.”

“Oh, you are as bad as the rest.”

I ignored him.

“For example,” he said. “When any issue comes up, you tend to pick a point of view and stick with it no matter what the facts say.”

“Do not.”

“Oh yes you do.”

“Do not.”

“Jimi Hendrix or Eric Clapton?”

He took me by surprise. I thought. “Eric Clapton, everybody knows that.”

“What if Clapton himself said ‘Hendrix?’”

“Eric Clapton.”

“What if ‘Rolling Stone Magazine’ said Hendrix?”

“Eric Clapton,” I said. “Now I have work to do.”

“Are you planning to produce a written or printed work consisting of pages glued or sewn together along one side and bound in covers?”

“If I decide to produce a book,” I said, “you won’t be in it.”

“Why not?”

“You aren’t interesting enough.”

“I’m more interesting than you.”

“Are not.”

“Am,” he said. “How many of your readers have suggested that you write a book about yourself?”

“Well,” I said, “none yet but that’s not to say they won’t be interested when it is finished.”

“Yeah,” he said, “and Rush Limbaugh might discover that it’s fun to talk about the goodness of humankind.”
“It could happen,” I said.

“And Bill O'Reilly might actually read one of those books he has ‘written’ as well and start acting like the subjects of them.”

“Well I do write all my stuff,” I said.

“And,” he  said, “how many of your readers have suggested that you include me in a book?”

I thought. “This month or all together?”

“Let’s just say in the last couple of months.”

“Oh,” I said, “quite a few.”

“So?”

“I’d be the laughing stock of America,” I said.

“No,” he said, “Sarah Palin has that title all sewed up.”

“Don’t you have something to do?”

“I could read something,” he said. “Dickens or Austin?”

Will Big Dope ever accept the truth? - C.W.

My worn copy of “Great Expectations” was in view. I saw the trap and could see the joy on his face when he repeated my answer to my wife. “Actually either is acceptable,” I said. “I prefer modern American writers.”

“Gatsby or Grapes of Fierce Anger?”

“Are you trying to provoke me?”

“Maybe I’ll just watch a little television while you write.” Before I could protest, he grabbed the TV remote and punched a button. Immediately the contorted face of Nancy Grace appeared. We both watched in disbelief as she convicted a person of gross sins against humanity and vowed that it would all come out in the trial. C.W. leaned forward and took it in with a wry smile. He turned to me and cocked his head, or at least the shape of the head he had chosen for today.

“Guilty or not guilty?” he said.

 

See also: www.wattensawpress.com

and: www.deltadreaming.blogspot.com

and of course: click an ad. We always need new hiking attire. - C.W.