Morning Thoughts

We were taking a morning walk and I was telling C.W. about my childhood. He seemed to be interested so I told him about some folks I knew as a child. One in particular interested him.

In the rural community where I was reared, there lived be a mentally disabled man whom everyone, himself included, called “Happy Bill.” He was a slight, sprite African-American who, when poked in the ribs, would yell out exactly what he was thinking at that second. It might be “white donkeys,” kiss her now,” or “jitterbugs,” whatever was on his mind. The local thugs tortured him constantly and cruelly for fun and frivolity.

C.W. thought. “They tortured him just to hear him blurt?”

“They did. It was great fun, particularly if a crowd had gathered in my father’s little country grocery store. They poked. He blurted. Everyone laughed.”

“Odd,” he said.

“It was odd,” I said. “Just a way for rednecks to feel superior.”

“No,” he said. “That’s not what I meant by odd.”

“Oh, really.”

“No,” he said. “I was thinking about that man who is running for the president of your country.”

“What about him?”

“He blurts out what is on his mind without being poked.”

“And?”

“Not many people are laughing.”

This man is becoming a cult figure on my planet,
for reasons that you might expect - C.W.