About yours I don't know...

...but my fantasies incarnate would land me in jail. However, illegal though they may be they are human and since we all have them - subject not to derision are they by others; strange they may seem, but with all (y)our pecadilloes -who's left to judge?

...still, knowing the inner self makes it often difficult to deal with the public persona...I mean I sometimes hear myself saying (or see myself writing)
one thing, possibly even very profound, rare though that may be, but midway through my professed profundity I find myself tripping and stammering over what I am saying because the Real Me Inside is saying, 'How DARE you say that knowing how you are behind closed doors alone?' So my speech trails off and what I was about to pronounce goes half-said then falls apart at the absurdity of this everpresent, relentless posturing one does to cope...

It's not easy being me.

How about you? Hard to live with yourself? I can relate...but you can't get away so you have to deal with it...nu? Who knew...the truth hurts doesn't it?! Only kidding...only kidding, Friend; you're alright in my book - and never mind your quirks. Say did I ever tell you about...

I've had a lot of fun today (from NFTD Archives)

...bear with me, let me explain...rewind...at six o'clock yesterday morning (6/28/98) I bought three $3 instant scratch tickets and went to have a coffee with a couple friends. Sitting at the kitchen table I scratched first one, a loser, and slid it across the table to Larry, 'Nope Larry, yours is a loser.' Now Joyce's, same thing, sorry Sister you're a loser too...well, your ticket is, you're not...and then...

Then I scratched the third ticket, mine. The instructions read something like match any one of your numbers to any one of theirs and win prize indicated. One of their numbers was a 2, so was one of mine, and the prize for me matching their number was: $50,000. I passed the ticket over to Larry. 'Does this say what I think it says?' 'I think it does...' Joyce? 'Absolutely, you got a 2, they got a 2, the prize is 50 grand!' A flurry of excited activity ensued, then 'I gotta go!'

I flew back to Linda at the Jiffy Mart who only moments ago had sold them to me, her first customer of the day. I gave it to her. 'I'd like to cash this in,' I told her, knowing you can only cash up to 599 dollars without going to the Lottery Commission. She took the ticket somewhat ho-humishly and ran it through the computer which popped up with the information that the ticket was legit and $50,000 with my name on it was in a vault down in Concord! Then things got a little animated...I can't stand still but neither can I go to Concord to claim my prize because it's Sunday and they don't open until Monday at 8 - 24 hours I am walking around with a $50,000 ticket in my pocket so of course I can't sleep nor eat and feel that somehow there's been an error and tomorrow my little balloon will burst...a restless night…as happens, morning came and by 8 I was standing tall at the lottery office where I said to Fran, the woman at the front office, 'I'd like to cash this in...' and she looked at it, eyes agog and said, 'Yes, yes, I should think you would,' and began the process of shelling out 50Gs to me!

HERE IS HOW THAT GOES…

You don't get 50 grand. They take out Uncle Sam's right off the top so you don't forget to mention it to the IRS, and after they had done that Fran and someone else from a big suite office came out, shook hands all around and presented me with a certified State of New Hampshire Lottery Commission check for (be still my heart!) 36,000 dollars, a good return on a three dollar bet.

I am directed to the Bank of New Hampshire in downtown metropolitan Concord and when I get there and present my check, once again the camaraderie and pleasantries begin, everybody in the bank is watching what's going on. The teller - her name was Leigh, told me after punching up a few keys on the word processor and consulting with a couple bigger wigs, 'We don't have enough money to cash this...'

I was thunderstruck - I've broke the bank! The esteemed Bank of New Hampshire doesn't have enough money to cash a $36,000 check!? Whatever will I do? I had to borrow 20 bucks to get here...they graciously come to terms and it went like this: they gave me $9,000 in cash and one of their checks for $27,000 which I can deposit in my bank and spend three days hence when it clears...no sweat...and then they are kind enough to count out 90 - can you believe it, 90 $100 bills, new ones, all in sequence and this done said to me, 'If you would like to count it again we have a private room for you...'

I seem to have moved up a tax bracket...

...and a caste in one $36,000 check - suddenly a bank which yesterday would have wanted me deloused, today fetes me as if the sudden acquisition of money was validation of one's true worth. I had to laugh. In I went...I am absolutely astonished at my good fortune and everybody who has heard has been wonderful about it, and such comments: 'Tuffy, can I have a beer?' 'Sure you can, they're in the van; you may be rich but you still gotta go get your own...' From Frankie who I owed a lot of money for a long time as I walked into his garage, 'I heard you'd be coming to see me...' From my dear Aunt Gogi, 'Dear Terry, I want you to know I am sorry for the time you had a penny in your mouth and I made you do a somersault and swallow it. I think you were 3 years old...your loving Aunt Gogi' - or, as I walked into Town Hall to license my new-to-me 1978 Triumph Bonneville, Earl Luther followed me to the Town Clerk's office holding a chair, 'Would you like to sit down Mr. Ward...here have a seat...' How sweet is Lady Luck realized? Very.

…O, o, o, I tell you I am having so much fun! I am debt-free for the first time since about 1957, it is an extraordinary feeling I never thought I'd experience and I mean to be very careful about getting into that five decades long situation again...fast forward several days...so many many times in the last, let's see how long has it been now, today is the 6th of July, I'm way late in publishing this issue but winning like this is a serious distraction, anyway I can't tell you how many times in the last few days since hitting this pot of gold I have heard people say 'It couldn't have happened to anyone more deserving' or variations of it but in MY mind it couldn't have happened to anyone LESS deserving, however...it's your basic simple twist of fate & like I said, I'm having a ball!

...and incidentally, long-time readers might recall one of my daydreams has been to have an inch-thick stack of crisp $100 dollar bills? Well, I had it, actually I had (have!) several and the thrill of riffling through it and knowing it was mine, however circuitous its route to me, put a five-inch smile on my gap-toothed puss, and - and - you are not going to read: 'Sorry, only kidding...'

...because I am not kidding. In a millisecond (however long it takes to scratch a ticket) my life went from poverty to wealth and a week later I am still dumbfounded, dazed, elated, saddened & gladdened and I expect I shall be shaking my shaggy head in bewilderment the rest of my life.

AND SPEAKING OF '...a world of rest beyond...'

...you're not being taken in by the gimcrack-brained televangelists passing themselves off as emissaries of god are you? They're a hokey lot of mostly honky monkeys aren't they? $300 blow drys (and jobs, the hypocrites) plus $1000 suits and $500 alligator shoes they'd have you believe are made from scraps of Jesus Christ Almighty's own goddamned sandals fer Cris'sakes...

Many people do believe these charlatans, these fake fakirs; their shrill hyperbole nets them millions annually; their pontificating peurilisms redound with absconded funds in the name of some non-existent god. They babble ridiculously on like zealots from Babylon in their zeal to convert you and your funds to their accounts and they prattle and blather stupidly away in an idly twaddling manner reminiscent of yours truly.

Religion is by far the sleaziest of pyramid schemes - you reap zero
benefitsuntil you die, according to its lights - and its multitudinous and
nefarious proselityzing (and wealthy) acolytes are the most unctuous of snake oil salesmen.

I only wish I had got in on it earlier myself so I coulda cleaned house.

'Brother Terry Speaks Tonight, All Are Welcome...$15 offering'
'Brother$ & $i$ter$, Plea$e Hear The Word From Brother T Bob...'
'Lord Have Mercy!', he cried, and the congregation fell to its collective knees, bound under the spell of Brother Terry's ringing oratory exhorting sinners one and all to heed the word of the Lord as defined in paragraph two of Bro T's spellbinding autobiography as only he can tell it, ten bucks at the door on the way in,$15 on leaving...get it while you can and
praise god when high, hallelujah...

NFTD PATS ON THE BACK, SORT OF...

Wardster,

It's always good to read your drivel. I enjoy having my mind clogged with your wordsmanship like I've been clogging my arteries for the past 58 years. What's another blockage? Anyway, I just returned from 39 days/nights in a tent in the southwestern deserts and mountains. You can view some (I haven't had a chance to process them all yet) of the photos at my website. www.MikeDiRenzo.com I'll attach a couple for your viewing pleasure. Stay well, keep doing what you do.
Regards, Mike

Northern Foolish,

Haven't had a minute to keep in touch which is something I promised myself I would not do with any of my friends. My busy season just ended with Labor Day. Weekends will stay busy but mid week is now slow with a few exceptions like October Bike Week and a Golf Convention. I am now getting ready to experience Hurricane Season. I guess I don't really understand all the worry about it. We have the weather channel. If a hurricane is coming, fucking leave. How difficult is that?

Anyways, I am writing to tell you that I have finally had a moment to pack up another package for you. AGAIN, nothing in it will get you locked up. Some lager libations, some pickles for "miss pickles", some Bloody Mary Mix that will satisfy your exquisite palette, it is Vodka Free and a few more local delicacies along with a letter and some pictures. Let me know when it arrives, it will be coming via UPS. Enjoy and keep in touch.

Southern Foolish

Hey Terry

Checked out your blog and read the newsletter you gave to me when I took your picture - looks good on the blog. Love the stories man. You have the clear honesty of a true artist - and the angst to go with it. You can make me laugh - sometimes to keep from cryin - right?

I wish I could make a movie about some of your tales - they do read like scenes for me. Little vignettes from the Zen of the moment. And your writing style and persona really brings it through.

Hope things are good in beautiful VT. The CERN atom smasher is in the news lately. Some scientists are afraid it might create a black hole, or strangelets and end the world. That sounds like something you would make up. "The strangelets have arrived".
Anyways the Mayan calendar ends in 2012. See you at the party.

Stan

(Dear NFTD READER - Stan, above, is Stan Sadowski from somewhere in PA who is responsible (I mean Thank You Stan) for the photograph of me above, hard at work in the Thrift Shop in Townshend VT 802/365-7234

In those days...

...I WASN'T VERY STREET-WISE...

...so as I walked through the dark, labrynthine warren of the Combat Zone to my own garret along Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, a toney part of Back Bay I lived in light years & many fears ago, a naif to the world and very as-yet untried & unenlightened...

...I well recall throwing half-finished cigs into the gutters and watching the down and out scabrous bums of the day practically club one another to get to the smoldering butt in the filthy street, as I walked away laughing, an 18-year-old know-it-all with an attitude and a lot to learn, and learn that lesson I did as, fast forward 25 years, it was I - ME - scrambling for the butts in the gutter tossed by show-off kids!

...turnabout being fair play (this too I had learned) I had to laugh.

...at another point in this embryonic period of my life, we are talking 1961 and 1962, I in my unworldly ignorance was cruising afoot when I saw a man walking briskly along alone in the early Fall evening, through the Common which runs down the middle of Commonwealth Avenue, an easy mark I think as I draw alongside him, he stepping lively in his three-piece herring-bone tweed suit, pointed-toe boots, pale blue shirt, fancy Brooks Brothers tie, and a walking-stick umbrella tapping along beside him.

This should be good...


(I am not going to apologize for this, I have paid in many ways for decades, and - as you will see - I also paid for it immediately and have remembered the lesson all my life and become much enlightened since this incident, but not alone because of it; one grows and comes to know.)

Anyway...he looked like a pushover.

"Give it up," I said to him, "...gimme your wallet or else..."

...he grinned bigly...

...then went to work on me with the brolly! I created a monster! He was like Johnny Depp fer Cris'sakes, jabbing and poking that goddamned thing into my ribs and the next one was in my ass Jack because I was running away from this crazy bastard as fast as I could go and he was just as fastly hitting me with that umbrella and finally tripped me from behind and put the dukes to me without ever mussing up his fuckin' vest...

...you could call it an object lesson in crime control.

HANDEL'S OVERTURE TO 'THE ALEXANDER FEAST'...

...plays an unending loop in my mind...
It is so beautiful a melding of instruments and sound that I am held speechless, spellbound.

It is, in my humble estimation, one of the best pieces of music to ever
come down the pike and for myself, think it should definitely be my going away
music, but not yet, not yet...o, listen to it...it is so beautiful...you can
almost hear the encomiums pouring down on your anointed head as your ashes are
strewn willy-nilly over the back 40, or is it opprobrium being heaped upon my
poor mortal's earthly remains?

I'm sorry already, sheeesh...get a Handel on it. I make light of it but
it is a glorious work of art and I can listen to it as often as I can view a beautiful painting and never tire of it...

Yet, something about it is so bittersweet it breaks down every false
courage I ever had, leaves me...how could I explain...I SLAP my forhead!? How
explain indeed. There's no explaining some things.

Violins counterpoint to cello to bass to winds...it is all too much.

...then again it could be the Kahlua...



'THE REASON I HAVEN'T INFLICTED MYSELF ON YOU MORE FREQUENTLY,'

...I have been meaning to tell a Friend of mine, '...is because I come with a lot of baggage, sort of a goyisha Woody Allen, mayo on my angst; he's got his klezmer/jazz clarinet, I got Hank Williams Jr. "...nobody wants me, I'm nobody's child..." Do you need the grief?'
And besides I would say, 'I'd probably bore you in no time at all; I mean yawn/ho-hum boredom; I've been told I'm much better on paper than in real life and having been around me for so long I can attest to that.'
Withal I require fealty unbound almost to the point of mouth agape at every pithy remark I utter and a sort of 'Yes, my liege' look at all times on your pretty, heart-shaped face. And all too soon what I now consider your o-so-clever repartee, I would be calling your bitter invective and a harangue against all that I stand for! (Huh? Duh?)
Then there's the cooking you'll have to do and my entree with dinner is...well, I could go on, but all in all you see it's better I don't call, come over or write very often. Please try to control your anxiety at this sad turn of events and don't do anything rash. It'll be tough for awhile but you can get by without me.


AFTER RED-DOTTING A FRIEND...

...who was doubling as a recalcitrant subscriber I sent a second red-dot reminder - six blank pages titled "Not From The Dump" and sure enough the prod worked because a few days later, there in the incoming was a 20 dollar check and once again a reader was euchred, ah, ushered into the fold...
I put the check in my wallet and thought no more of it until today when I
signed it and put it in my checking account and noticed that in the place where you put what the check was for he'd written 'Junkmail'...

I s'pose you had to be there, but...

…I’m parked on top of the dam, to my left the wooden covered bridge a 100 feet above the gorge across which is jogging a Fox (sorry for the reversion to MCP 70s lingo) but she was so pretty and as she ran along was doing arm stretches and taking in the breathtaking view, then veered and stopped 15 feet from me and started leg exercises on the guard rail – be still my heart – and after a few of these goes by my open window and politely says, ‘Good morning,’ and begins more leg stretches at the other guard rail, now only ten feet away from me – the thrill of being privy to this youthful beauty is nearly more than I can bear and I practically swoon from the rush - suddenly she comes over to my window and says, ‘Do you know where there’s a good bakery?’

‘Bakery,’ I barked laughing, ‘…you’re doing all these exercises to keep looking as good as you do and you want to know where there’s some donuts?!’

‘It’s why I exercise,’ she said, ‘...so I can go to the bakery…’ I filled her in on the nearest jelly donut and she disappeared down the bleak road…