Great showing, everyone. Here are my favorites.
Octo knocked me over with this early on:
I spend my whole life
Trying to find that feeling
Of Christmas morning
Well put. Whistful. And so true for him.
Catfreek came out of the closet as Italian white trash with this one:
What's for dinner Mom?
Your Dad hasn't killed it yet
Yes, in Barrington
I want to hear more about just kilt' dinners. Great stuff.
And then she shared an experience all too familiar to most of us:
Field behind my house
A plethora of wonders
Gone. Now huge houses
This makes me sad on two levels. One, development that mows over kids' fields is sad. Two, I can't afford one of those huge houses. Nicely done.
JSP had a couple that really captured the essence of kid-dom:
An unpleasant truth
My earliest memory:
Green poop on the beach
A few questions: um, whose poop was that? Why was it green? And do I want to know the answers?
First time I saw boobs
Stash of Playboys in the woods
I was like “jackpot!”
There is something so innocent and natural about finding Playboys in the woods. But maybe I only think that because we had to go foraging through dumpsters to find our childhood porn.
Loved this one by AC:
my nose in a book
the cause or consequence of
lacking social skills
So well crafted. It presents us with a chicken / egg dilemma, doesn't it?
Absolutely taking first prize in the "funny because it's true" category, was 50:
but seriously
giant robots are scary
everyone fears them
This was part of a larger conversation between a few of you, but I have to say, it stands well on its own. It's just telling it like it is.
Then 50 got into a whole story about Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger stealing his natural wonderland. Yeah...it's gotta be tough, being a rich kid in LA, when celebs move in and take the back yard woods away. My heart is bleeeeeeeeding.
But right in there were a couple verses from his epic haiku that were, well, for real, actual beautiful haikus:
pine tree canopy
fields of ivy and tall grass
the smell of clean soil
bottlebrush bushes
flowers like red sea urchins
pungent perfume leaves
Prrrrrretty.
JPX summed up the whole sorry, intolerable situation of childhood:
I don't like my age
I can't believe I'm 40
How did this happen?
How indeed. Let's face it, we're all doomed.
But then DCD saved the day with this one, which I declare the WINNER!
The joy of Christmas.
You really do get it back
when you are Santa.
Hooray! Thanks for reminding us that even though we're all on the slippery slope into an open grave, there's still happiness because we've followed our biological imperative and reproduced, starting the whole silly cycle of old age, suffering, sickness and death over again. But it's sooo much fun sometimes!
Congrats, DCD!
