Thursday's Columns
November 21, 2024
Our
Story
by
Lawrence Abby Gauthier
ace reporter
The Westphalia Periodic News
The Siren's Song
The victorious slogan – “Make America Great Again”– stands reason upon its head, treats of logic like a butterfly, but is, nevertheless, seductive, like waving an open can of beer under the nose of an alcoholic.
I get it. I’m an alcoholic. I’m easily seduced by the memory of all the high times I’ve had in bars across the land, bullshitting with characters likewise seduced, 8-ball in the corner pocket for free drinks, writing the Great American Novel on the back of matchbook covers.
Lucky for me, in 1990 I crashed into an unoccupied parked car on a Dallas side street at 2 a.m. Family and friends took their time bailing me out of jail on drunk driving charges. Before letting me back to work in the newsroom, the company made me spend 30 in-patient days in a hospital treatment center.
Lying in my bed that first night, tranquillized per doctor’s orders to calm me down, I picked up the only reading material on my bedside table and was introduced to Bill W. and the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.
I’ve long thought that what I learned (or realized) that night saved my life for something better.
We’re all born with the seductive sounds in our ears of the mythical Sirens of Greek lore calling us back, tempting us with elusive memories of a better time when we had no worries floating weightless in a rich fluid supplying all our needs.
Even now, when I’m anxious or disturbed, or just want to sleep the day away, I’m seduced by thoughts in my mind of the good times we had in high school at beer parties at somebody’s camp in the woods, or the warm surge of courage to ask her for her hand at the Friday night dance.
But I can report as a trained journalist at the end of a long investigation into the 17th century debate between Leibnitz and Newton that Leibniz was right and that there’s no going back.
The orbiting Webb telescope has taken pictures of the predicted location of the Beginning, and it’s not there. No Big Bang to which we’re destined to return just to repeat the same movie over and over again. The universe is not cycles in time, like Newton said, and it can’t be random, like Newton said, so it must be an unfolding according to universal laws, like Leibniz said.
The enchantment of the sounds of the Sirens’ song leads one down the path to the hospital bed. Learn from your mistakes, the Big Book said, then turn the page.
--30--
The Continuing Saga:
Darwyn Van Wye,
Quin County Lawyer,
Real Estate Broker,
Closeted Poet
by
Craig Chambers
Craig Chambers
Huntley and Brinkley
(Editor's note: We think the fictional Gary Moth character bears a striking resemblance to our own ace reporter... The Staff of Westphalia.)
There’s a writer at the Book Barrel Wednesday Night’s Writers Group, the BBWG, named Gary Moth. He’s an older guy, writes about being an investigative journalist in Michigan and Wisconsin in the 70s, then losing his job and working as an over-the-road trucker. Every time he writes a story, just as the story gets interesting, he starts digressing about Leibniz, the 17th century German mathematician and philosopher.
Now I was a philosophy and English major in college. I was studying to become a poet. I studied Aristotle. Kant and Kierkegaard. I read Leibniz, but I quoted Bob Marley. Trucker Gary Moth has more interest and passion about philosophy than any professor I ever saw.
I went to one of the finest schools, however, I spent most of my time at the campus bar or in the girls’ dorm. I was young and stupid. Like many poets, I drank a lot. My mom was so disappointed in me, she wanted to get her tuition money back.
In the end, I didn’t become a poet. I became a lawyer. If I’m a writer, I’m a writer with an audience of one, the judge.
I didn’t understand that it would take so long or be so hard. Or that being a lawyer is not like other jobs. To develop as a writer you have to develop as a person. But here am I, years later: I have the wife, the kids, the grandkids, the books, the money, the houses, the dog. I go to bed every night with a smile and wake up with a smile. Could I have done it differently? Yes. But different isn’t necessarily better.
Gary Moth, I’m sorry you lost your job or got disappeared. That was 40 years ago, it’s time to move on. Even Huntley and Brinkley said a final “Goodnight Chet” at some point.
And I don’t give a shit about Leibniz or any of the dead philosophers. I’ve got houses to sell, trials to prepare for. Sometimes you have to dumb it down. Any idiot who's tripped on a pothole on my street knows — this is not the best of all possible worlds.
I want to know what it was like to be a trucker, the problems he had and how he overcame them, the stories about the hitchhikers he met, the people in the truck stops, on the road, the cheap motels and diners. Now that I am old, I’m really interested in things I didn’t care about when I was young.
--30--
Latest Mail
from
Eric Chaet
Eric Chaet
Doorman
Good morning, sir, good morning, ma’am.
Yes, I’m wearing a different uniform,
different gloves, different hat.
I’ve cleaned the glass of the door—
I discovered a new solvent.
Isn’t it glorious, how the glass
is so thoroughly transparent,
yet transmitting sparkle from the Sun?
Yes, you’re right, it’s a different door,
different frame, different hinges, too.
Notice, in fact, that the building
into which I’m ushering you
is a different building
than the one you routinely enter.
Please, take a good look
at your reflection in the glass—
that’s the last you’ll see of it.
It won’t survive the walk across the lobby.
Someone else will step out of the elevator
on a different floor, different company,
different industry, different agenda,
different obstacles, different opportunities,
different priorities, different purpose.
