Twenty Answers

Why stop with verbs? We started with the notion of Twenty Questions. Why not Twenty Answers?

1. 1948
2. 1970
3. three
4. 10,559, give or take
   
5. goatee
6. English, French, Latin
7. grapefruit
8. The Lay of the Land
9. Freedom of Espresso
10. "Between God and me there is no 'between.' "
11. Turner to Cezanne
12. solipsism
13. Soren Kierkegaard
14. Willie Mays
15. Tipperary Hill
16. 17 syllables, but not necessarily
17. approximately six years
18. the silk or satin borders of my childhood blanket, especially the notches formed where the sewing was done
19. Marcel Proust
20. Slovak and Polish

Twenty Verbs, Redux Again

let's try the infinitive forms of verbs today

1. to snow
2. to freeze
3. to shine
4. to shiver
5. to leap
6. to skip
7. to cry
8. to surprise
9. to cleave
10. to cling
11. to divitiate
12. to surbate
13. to aberuncate
14. to venditate
15. to surrender
16. to melt
17. to warm
18. to inosculate
19. to flob
20. to indagate

Twenty Verbs, II

On this the fourth anniversary of my brother's death, some participles and other forms for parting and otherwise:

1. grieving
2. remembering
3. raining
4. sitting
5. passed
6. wondered
7. said
8. mourning
9. missing
10. moving
11. breathing
12. exhaled
13. touched
14. tapped
15. laughed
16. cried
17. asked
18. answered
19. drifted
20. held

Twenty Verbs

Hey, you've all heard of Twenty Questions, why not Twenty Answers [which is an answer enveloped within a question]? Better yet, since verbs are more cogent than nouns, why not Twenty Verbs?

This may already be an Internet sensation I am unaware of. Maybe it will become a FW:FW:FW:FW ad infinitum Internet sensation.

No matter.

Here goes.

Twenty Verbs to describe my day, not necessarily in order or proper tense or mode or mood or voice:

1. awoke
2. ate
3. drove
4. talked
   
5. prayed
6. thanked
7. listened
8. watched
9. heard
10. walked
11. touched
12. washed
13. brushed
14. communed
15. sang
16. napped
17. meditated
    
18. saw
19. learned
20. read

You?

Decarceration SitRep

Living without a car is doable, so far. I find that

• I walk more
• depend more on others
• consume less
• eat less junk food
• feel more restricted
• consolidate trips
• use my wife's car more
• buy gas for her car
• save on car insurance
• try to avoid self-righteousness over this condition

Pie in the (Not) Sky

The surprise of it all. The look on their faces. The initial suspicions. The relief. Simple and radical.

We started on Jamar Drive, just down the block from the church. Someone had suggested it as a gesture of radical hospitality. So, on the preceding Saturday, the Saturday before Thanksgiving, a group of older and younger members made a bunch of pumpkin pies, more than 20, I'm told. Then we distributed them Tuesday night. Jim drove slowly in his car, stopping as Win and I knocked on doors or rang doorbells on opposite sides of the street. Jim crossed off names of families who were home and made notes of those who did not answer the door in the darkness of an early November evening.

I can only report on what I saw and heard and felt.

People not showing fear or apprehensiveness toward a stranger ringing a doorbell or rapping on a door in the dark, though I surmised fear, or at least practical safety considerations. The flickering light of a television screen in a distant room; television sets: America's new-found hearths, as John Updike once put it.

If I recall correctly, I saw not one male answer a door. Is that possible? Is it only women who answer the door in suburban America? Has Dad, if he is there, popped upon a stereotypical beer or is he living out a cliche by watching a sporting event? Would it be different on Tipp Hill?

Three young girls. I told them I'd understand if they could not accept a pumpkin pie from a stranger, but, see, here's a card from the kids in church school. Then a few minutes later Mom came home, in a van, into the driveway, with another girl, and as I stood in the driveway I surprised the mother, telling her that was the last thing I wanted to do, scare her, and I just want to tell you, I gave a pie to your daughters a few minutes ago. We're just saying Happy Thanksgiving and thanks for being good neighbors all year round.

That was the message.

What?

Oh, how nice of you! Happy Thanksgiving to you, too.

What was your name again?

No strings attached.

No Bible or prayer card or schedule of services or "Come, join us" or encyclical or chapter and verse. None of that.

A gift is freely given, with no conditions.

Stopped them in their tracks, faces transformed from puzzlement to wonder and gratitude and delight.

What a blast.

Then Kurt and Jack joined us.

Four men, huddled in the dark.

Almost a quorum.

As if giving thanks had legislative requisites.

We knew without saying the motion, the movement, the tidal pulse, was carried.

Unanimously.

haiku redux

Endless Mountains' fog
Dutch Kitchen, Frackville: homespun
Beltway sunset bath