Ode To The ’80s

17th December – Torresdale Manor, Andalusia, PA – Remnants of Winter Storm Gail

18th December – Lardner’s Point, Delaware River, Tacony-Palmyra Bridge in Philadelphia

Been feeling under the weather lately. Not that I have COVID-19—I don’t think so—no fever, chills, aching muscles, loss of taste or appetite, but just a common change-of-season cold. Stayed indoors during our first winter storm on Wednesday, went out to take photos of the snow on Thursday and Friday, but opted to remain at home on Saturday, the 19th.

While taking a nap, I was awoken instantly by blaring sirens from fire engines, screaming through my development. Looking out the sliding doors in the living room, I determined it was Santa Claus, passing through with the entire Bensalem Fire Department. Ho, Ho, Ho, bah, humbug, I thought.

Now wide-awake, I threw into the microwave the remainder of a Styer Orchards’ shepherd’s pie leftover from Wednesday. The delicacy is pre-made by the farm market’s baker, needing only to be placed in the oven for a couple of hours at 350° F. It’s a wonderful treat!

After dinner, I searched for a certificate awarded to me, as mentioned in a holiday tweet made on Friday:

Lamar Alexander was Governor of Tennessee when I attended East Tennessee State University in Johnson City. Somewhere, I have a signed certificate by him, commemorating my work as an enumerator with the 1980 Census. Good luck, Senator. You’ll not be forgotten! https://t.co/bHEmbegET3

— Mike B (@MikeSlickster) December 18, 2020

I didn’t find it, but remembered the recognition was signed by then-Senator Jim Sasser, not Lamar Alexander. However, I did come across the following, which is another acknowledgement for my public service:

One more reminder to make me feel older than dirt.

As I rummaged through the black-hole closet, looking for the missing certificate, a notebook appeared from my college days:

It was from one of my biology classes:

I think the above hieroglyphics were calculations about species variance during a field study. Anyway, toward the end of the notebook, I found a poem I had written around 1985. Allow me to share it with you:

Here in the ’80s and I still can’t conform,
For where are the sane ones from yesteryears gone?
They had all the answers and they all felt the pain,
That society had paid them with bad thoughts and disdain.

The establishment couldn’t tell them, nor did they have the right,
To inflict their life’s patterns, or to shower them with spite;
Bucking the system, the renegades turned their lives around,
One hundred and eighty degrees to the right side of town.

So here in the ’80s the recusants are no longer dropped-out,
Their values, clothes and hair styles are what it’s all about,
Now they’re authority and decide whom to cast out,
Having overcome their own subsets of doubts.

Now in the mid-’80s and I still can’t conform;
My hair is much shorter and my clothes not as worn,
But I feel out of place here where the sane ones exist;
Maybe I’ll throw away my razor and again live in bliss.

There’s another poem inscribed in that notebook with thoughts about divinity, which I’ll post in another tirade.

Speaking of divinity, Rie Waits and I put together our yearly yuletide carol. Here’s wishing you and yours a very Merry Christmas, and hoping those of whom celebrated Hanukkah had a joyous one as well:

Mike Slickster & His One-Man Steampunk Boogie Band · The Twelve Days Of Christmas Duet

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