Thursday, January 13, 2011

Someone's Got To - Reprise


That's me on the left, with my mother and a colleague of hers on the Bridge of Faith at Unity Village, Mo. on July 30, 1972. Mom had moved to begin training as a Unity Minister.


I am sitting at the dining table in our apartment overlooking the Yaquina Bay in Newport, Oregon, ca. 1976.


First posted, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2009


I couldn't make this up. I'll bet you couldn't either. It is just beyond me to ever conceive of this. I found it on Post Secret, so somebody did make it up, perhaps even commited this act. I loved the postcard so much I wrote it as a poem. This act against the Gideon Bible is surely one of the ultimates in underground resistance, the sort of thing hippies loved to do. It is nearly perfect in its peacefulness. I don't care that I stole the idea. Stealing the idea (but not the form) is technically legal. Stealing the idea also is an underground act.

Everything I am builds on the fact that for six years I was a hippie in one or another form. In 1966 this die was cast. In 1973 I was forced by circumstance to go underground. I began training up in things like careers and marriages. Even so it took eight more years until I bought a house. My heart still delights in things hip.

Someone's Got To

I go on long trips,
stay in hotels with nothing
to do, but pull out
Gideon's Bible
and draw naked people where
I can find the space
for them. Then I list
the pages on the cover
page to help others.

February 13, 2009 4:16 PM

17 comments:

  1. That second photo especially, that smile and the quirk of your head, your eyes! Ha! Mischievious!

    Your life's path never ceases to amaze me.

    xo
    erin

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is indeed interesting . Liked it, christopher..

    And I am here to thank you for your very enlightening comment. to tell you the truth.. I write without knowing anything else..I mean whether I am using a Metaphore or there is some kind of a Muse.. I don't know that.. but then I learnt here about Haikus ..started trying those.. I mean I haven't been a student of English Literature..But I read a lot.. and never poetry except for few poems from text books in school and later now only of all the blogger freinds like you..
    I just write, that's it..But then yes, discerning friends like you do keep on giving me inputs whichencourage me and make me more aware. Thanks for your visit.. keep visiting..it will encourage..

    ReplyDelete
  3. Erin, the quirk as you call it of my head is lifelong. I tilt all the time, but to either side. I'm stoned, of course, one of the rare times after 1972 that I was. I almost completely quit dope but what happened, my friend Guy and his lady Donna came to visit and brought in the dope. I roll the best joint. So they took a picture of me doing it.

    Rachel, exactly.

    Love you both, good friends.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Seriously, Awesome.

    Can't believe you cut your hair though.
    Thank you for the peek at the you.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Well, Ramesh, I tend to not comment when things are not so good. If you want my comments, then do your best. There is no reason to slack off here. If you want to slack just take the time off. Do your best work and find out where that goes.

    So understand that I meant what I said. Your stuff worked really well this time.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Please, excuse me. I also do not comment when I lack time to get around. That is mostly why I don't comment.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Now that I have high speed, Ms. Zombie Slayer, I can do stuff like this. Yee Haw! Now you know I don't lie when I say I weighed 155 pounds for about six years as a young man.

    ReplyDelete
  8. loved the photos, love the sensibility, loved loved loved the poem.
    nice.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I think those of us who came of age during the hippie years always carry that inside. We may look respectable, but... :-)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Aw, what a pussy cat you were/are!

    Love the Gideon bible story.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I love that poem and the irreverence of it. I missed out on the sixties but a young woman at work called me a hippie the other day, in reference to my free love policy apparently. I think I'm wound way too tight to be a hippie.

    Love the photos. They do so scream 1970's.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Wow! Calling me a pussy cat and talking about free love. *blush*

    I'm not sure I can bear up under the pressure here...

    ReplyDelete
  13. I'm sure I've seen the second photo, but not the first. Hypatia was always such a beauty!

    I apparently have the head tilt, too. An old friend recently pointed it out in a picture of Millie that I posted. Perhaps we inherited it from her.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Patia, you can of course collect it if you wish.

    The other guy in the photo was one of a pair of Australians that Mom kind of adopted in San Jose in her pre ministerial days when she was getting serious about going back to Unity for training. I forget his name (it seems to be on the tip of my tongue but no soap so far) and never cared very much for them. In fact I felt a little suspicious of them, frankly, but undecided whether it was just jealousy of a kind or something I was getting from them. I am not usually that jealous without something actually happening. I never knew for sure.

    I am quite comfortable with the idea our head tilt comes from Millie. What it is internally for me, I never feel comfortable with my head straight up, kind of like it balances a little precariously in that upright position.

    ReplyDelete
  15. My first thought on seeing it was that there was something going on between those two. Maybe just flirtation. But your instincts were probably right.

    ReplyDelete

The chicken crossed the road. That's poultry in motion.


Get Your Own Visitor Map!