Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind? Of course not. We thought we had this question sufficiently answered last year and the year before it. But this is, apparently, a question which will not take a simple “no” for an answer. It requires a special kind of No, a No highly confident in its No-ness, the kind of No which races across town to the highest hill and hurtles itself headlong down the grade, picking up speed, gathering momentum until it resembles nothing more than a runaway train, coal furnace blazing, leaning on the horn, a No which descends to the earth below with a mammoth roar, carving a crater the size of Connecticut and raising a dust cloud which blots out the sun. That kind of No.
If there’s anything The Flying Pie is about it’s auld acquaintance not being forgot. The title of the Scottish song, of course, translates to “times gone by” and is about remembering friends from the past, not allowing them to be surrendered to the mists of history. When we were kids, friends abounded, we had an endless supply, some hung around, others departed, but we never had the notion there was a finite supply, that these miraculous beings were not in some cases merely pearls before swine. As we got older and Time imposed its cruel demands, friends diminished to a relative few, but a dependable lot they were, always available in times of celebration and at the ready in a crisis.
Then, suddenly, a friend disappears, and then another. Relationships built and nurtured over decades, friends we shared our hopes and dreams and regrets with are lost in the blink of an eye. The loss is acute and the ache long-lasting. They say we live in a throwaway society but you can’t replace these kinds of gems with a trip to the Walmart. And the older we get, the better we know it. These days, we hold our friends close, we keep in contact. And we fondly remember those who brightened our lives for however long. Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind? Not a chance. Not on our watch.
Turn Out The Lights, The Party’s Over
Well, so much for 2015. All in all, it was a pretty good year. Kim Jong-un didn’t blow up the world for the third year in a row, marijuana came closer to legalization in many states across the country and Bill and Siobhan decided, just for the hell of it, to get married in the Summer of 2016.
We enjoyed spectacular comedic television as Donald Trump & the Seven Dwarfs decided to run for president, stumbling out of the clown car and falling all over one another in their Great Debates. “It’s a good thing they have so many of them (debates),” said my gym friend, Barbara Reissfelder, a GOP fancier. “As soon as I start to like one of the candidates, he says something to prove he’s a moron.” My sister, Alice (the frustrated Republican), when asked who her candidate was, admitted “I don’t know. All the ones I started out liking are doing crappy.” Welcome to life in the Grand Old Party. Reagan can’t run anymore, Alice. He’s dead.
The 2015 Flying Pie Internet Heroes of the Year were Harry Edwards of Austin and Deb Peterson of various parts of Oregon. Deb is the only winner who never sent in her celebratory dinner photo. She is also still using a fifty year old picture on her Facebook page, so this can mean one of two things: (a) Deb is in the U.S. Witness Protection Program, or (b) she’s in the middle of one of those transgender dilemmas, like Bruce (Caitlyn) Jenner. In mentioning the latter character, I have to be very careful here. Earlier this year, Harry Edwards and I were kidding around about Bruce/Caitlyn on his Facebook page and people took umbrage. Some of them even got mad. Harry had to hide under the covers for awhile til the thing blew over. Now, it seems like Bruce may be changing his mind about the whole transformation. I know this because I read about his vacillation in the National Enquirer while I was waiting in the grocery line at the Publix. It never fails to amaze me how few people keep up with the many important articles in this newspaper which are summarily ignored by the popular press. Although I do have to admit that it’s possible Brad and Angelina may not be splitting up after all, despite NE declaring its inevitability for the past ten years. Maybe the Enquirer has the same philosophy as the guy who drags out “The World Ends Today!” sign every day. If he keeps doing it long enough, sooner or later he’ll be right.
In 2015, it was announced that previous Internet Hero, Marty Jourard, is finally having his book published after seventeen years in the making. Marty is slow, but solid. The tome was supposed to be titled “Gettin’ Down In Gatortown,” a wonderful choice, but the University of Florida Press decided to change it to “Music Everywhere: The Rock ‘n’ Roll Roots Of A Southern Town,” which is dumb. UF originally cited an April, 2016 publication date but recently bumped it back to June. If it ever actually comes out, we’ll let you know, but we’re not optimistic. The UF Press is still working on “An Introduction To The Fantastic World Of the Hippies.”
American Pharoah Down On The Farm
“Down The Stretch They Come!”
Finally, after 37 years of abstinence and one year after the co-owner of Kentucky Derby winner Clifornia Chrome promised there would never again be a Triple Crown winner, American Pharoah made him eat dirt and galvanized the American public by annexing the Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes. Then, after a rare setback in Saratoga’s Travers, he demolished a stellar field of older horses and three-year-olds alike in the Breeders’ Cup and was named Horse of the Year, the decade and the last forty years. Okay, we got a little carried away there. Anyway, due to the unfortunate financial logistics of the thoroughbred business, Pharoah has been retired to stud in Lexington, Kentucky. Hopefully, he will live happily ever after.
Meanwhile, Bill and Siobhan had an unproductive racing year, their worst in….well, forever. But where there’s life, there’s hope Ava and Micki, our soon-to-be two-year-olds, are training down the road for an April debut. Ava’s full brother, Cosmic Flash, was as fast as they come but disliked showing off, satisfied to finish in midpack or worse since they feed you just as much. We’ve had several conversations with his sister about the importance of arriving early and she has promised to get the job done. Her roommate, Micki, was born elsewhere and adopted here as a weanling, and she’s a tough girl to read. Some fillies like to race and some prefer to lounge around the house watching television soap operas and noshing on Godivas. The sooner their predilections are correctly assayed, the better. Training rates at the track have ascended to $70-$90 a day and none of those trainers believe in the barter system.
Cuba, Si! Yankee Go.
2015 was the year the U.S. government finally declared a rapprochement with Cuba. I mean it’s only been, what, a thousand years? Fidel is still around, believe it or not. They wheel him out in a golf cart for special occasions, like the opening of a new cheese shop on the Malecon. Fidel has a lot of American friends now that he’s harmless. As a matter of fact, some of his gringo pals are trying to talk him into running for mayor of Miami. They figure if he wins, all the Cubans will move to Detroit.
Being a big fan of 1950s automobiles, I’m looking forward to visiting Havana, where they’ve got tons of ‘em, not one still painted in the original color. Cubans don’t like mauve or beige or ocher. Cubans like Cobalt Blue, Tangerine and Fire Engine Red, sometimes on the same car. Say what you will, our Caribbean amigos have kept the things running an inordinate amount of time on washing-machine parts, magic beads and strong coffee. You can buy one for a mere sixty thousand, give or take a grand. Aside from their sheer beauty, these magnificent vehicles had another big plus. You could actually tell one make from another, unlike today when 80% of the cars on the road look like roller skates created in the same giant cookie factory and everything is painted white, black, dull silver or weak “champagne.” Think of the splash you could make in your neighborhood with a ‘57 Ford Fairlane in nifty shades of Mango, Heliotrope and Sky Blue. Not to mention an exciting additional advantage: Black kids will never have the bad taste to steal your ride.
Greeting From Beautiful Kabul
In May, Siobhan and I trekked up to lovely Johnson City, Tennessee to watch her niece, Kathleen, graduate from medical school. As if there aren’t enough doctors in this family already. Anyway, Kathleen packed up her dog and diploma and blew town for a hospital stint in Chattanooga where she has neither time to sleep nor eat and has already lost a hundred pounds, leaving her extremely hungry but looking like a movie star. Kathleen visited us on a recent furlough along with her faithful companion, Yaniv, an employee of the U.S. State Department. Yaniv, it seems, has been recently posted to Kabul, Afghanistan—yes, that Afghanistan—and he seems to think this is a good thing. I think Kathleen was hoping for Monaco or Mazatlan, but the action is apparently a little slow in those parts and Afghanistan is a better career move, at least until you’re dead. All this does present us with a rare opportunity, however, since we’ve always wanted one of those funky shirts which declared “My Friends Visited Kabul And All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirt!” We’re hoping Yaniv will send the thing as soon as he gets there. You know—before anything bad happens. We don’t get these opportunities every day.
We’re Leaving On A….A WHAT?
You’d think a relative eden like Fairfield, Florida would be a nice, safe place to live. And it has been pretty much just that except for the time Julie the Postmistress directed one of Siobhan’s stalkers straight to our door. Or the time the Drug Squad flew down in vehicles of every description and raided a pot house at the end of our street, nabbing scores. Or the time the Russian Orthodox Church opened a seminary just over the hill and strung up the Hammer & Sickle flag in front of the place. Alright, we made the flag part up but it is getting a lot more dangerous around here. Now, we’ve got helicopter pilots moving into the neighborhood, buzzing the house and causing great commotion in the goat paddock. Next thing you know, drones will be careening through town, whipping the rednecks into a fervor as they rush to defend their gun closets. It’s a dilemma.
The new guys are Richard Helms and Greg Poe and they seem nice enough on the surface, gentlemen farmers kind to animals and the like, but these are merely their secret identities. The rest of the time, they are dipping and diving their dangerous charges all over the landscape, scaring the horses and leading otherwise sensible women astray. Siobhan advises me they have now invited us on a quick flight to the beach, where lunch will be served by some social matron who has unaccountably disguised her mansion as a ship. Now I am not the sharpest tack in the box but I have accumulated information which leads me to believe these so-called “helicopters” are in the habit of actually flying without wings, which seems a bit ambitious to me. When I suggested to Siobhan that such a trip might be a little risky, she asked me where my spirit of adventure had gone. Since I am very polite, I never asked her the same question when I was climbing Half Dome and she was cowering at the bottom. I am not really afraid of these activities, I have merely calculated the chances of one living are somewhat greater when they are left to others. Over the years, I have grown rather fond of watching the sun rise and set and I would like to continue my little hobby as long as possible, if you don’t mind. Nonetheless, I have agreed to participate in this foolishness rather than be thought a bad sport. Takeoff is at 11:00 a.m. Saturday, for better or for worse. If The Flying Pie doesn’t appear on your doorstep promptly at two next Thursday, you’ll know what happened. In lieu of flowers, send pastry. My sorrowful sisters will still have to eat.
That’s all, folks….
