Category Archives: Uncategorized

This is a short soliloquy about giving up being a nudist and practicing nudism.

There are many complicated reasons why I have to give up practicing nudism. It certainly isn’t that I have given up on my love for the feeling of walking naked in the dappled sunshine and shade of the cool green forest floor, or swimming nude on a summer’s day with other nude people. (My memory of that revolves around kid friends at Duffy’s Creek and the swimming hole near the railroad bridge.)

But it does involve my malignant melanoma in 1983. My family has long been susceptible to skin cancer. And even slathered with sunscreen, I do have the problem of sun-damage in old age increasing my chances of a relapse.

And it does include the fact that every nudist camp or park is far away from home, and long drives are harder now to do alone. My wife refuses to entertain the possibility of visiting a nudist park, even if she didn’t have to take her own clothes off. That is a religious stance that she simply will not compromise. My children, while they were not opposed to skinny-dipping in the pool when they were young, are embarrassed by the memory of it now that they are all adults themselves. I have no one to share it with.

I used to have the back yard to sit outside under the trees wearing nothing but sunscreen, mosquito repellent, and a sun hat. I liked to read good books that way, and even edit my own books that way. But now the wind blew down a portion of the privacy fence, and public nudity in Texas is a serious offense in a Baptist and Catholic neighborhood.

I am not claiming that I am no longer a nudist. I am certainly still that. But I am now nothing but an indoor, only-in-the-bedroom nudist. And though it stings a little, I have to accept that new reality.

There comes a time when you stop and realize…

My heroes are now long gone.

No part of my crumbling carcass is working well, and most of it will soon be dust.

My energy is at the lowest of levels, the fuel tank is full of leaks.

My most important work in life is now almost all done and in the past.

So, I now have to take stock of the few tasks still ahead…

I must still be a parent until I am breathing no more.

There are still a few tales, wisdoms, and words that I can still share.

And I must still provide the world with the rest of the love in my heart until it finally stops.

Before you go into panic mode, let me clearly state: No college or high school was actually foolish enough to invite Mickey to give the commencement address to its graduates. So, don’t worry about a generation of our youth actually taking to heart the advice Mickey is about to give and ruining our world for the next twenty years. This is just the insane drivel that Mickey would say if some superintendent, principal, or college dean were actually stupid enough to ask.

The most impressive commencement speech I remember from my life in education was given in 1974 by my favorite high school English teacher, Mr. Sorum. He was a gifted speaker and told a mean joke whenever a joke was needed to make the point.

He talked for forty-five minutes about “Taking the next bite of the hot dog.”

Of course, he was talking about a metaphor where the hot dog was a life of being a good citizen and living in service to the greater good. High school graduation, in this speech, was the first bite of the hot dog. Some of us were listening to what Mr. Sorum was actually saying. My second bite of the hot dog was to get an English degree from Iowa State University. My third bite was a teaching degree from the University of Iowa. The fourth was choosing a life of service by being a public school English teacher. So, I followed his advice.

Most of my class, though, took that speech to mean life was all about eating hot dogs. Was I wrong? Do I need to rethink my life?

If I am going to give advice to today’s graduates, the advice I would have to give is, “For God’s sakes, don’t choose to be a public school teacher! Do you have any idea how hard that job is for how little reward (practically none of it in money?)”

So, what advice do I have for actually doing something with your life that helps with the common good?

The most important one; “After you go to the bathroom, flush! Gol dangit! And afterwards, wash your danged hands!“

You wouldn’t believe what kind of bacteriological nightmares are being placed in your hand daily if you have a job where you are supposed to regularly shake hands.

Another key recommendation;; “Stop being so gosh-darned ugly!”

Of course, you know that this is not a matter of whether you have a pretty face or you scare rats in dark rooms. This is a matter of behavior. A matter of how many people you hate and treat with scorn and injustice, as well as who you routinely hate, and why you hate them. Hating anyone for any reason is not good for their health and is even worse for yours.

And a final thought about how to improve the world; “Figure out what and who you love in this world. Everyone needs to have something and someone to love and work at sharing your life energy with.” People need other people and they need a purpose, even if they have to forge that purpose out cardboard, imagination, and thin air.

If, by chance, you can already handle all of these things that idiot Mickey is lecturing you about, especially if these things come naturally to you, then totally ignore that first dumb thing Mickey said. Think seriously about becoming a teacher. What you have we desperately need more of. And with your expertise passed on to others, we might just be able to make more of it.

There is a deal that will be voted on to prevent default. Of course, there are still threats to the process. The Republicans that are sane enough to avoid default will probably be punished for their sanity by the rabid base and MTG (I do appreciate how accurately the cartoonist above portrays her teeth-grinding madness.)

Of course, this doesn’t make the Republicans any less evil. They still desire to give all the plumbs to the wealthy elite and corporate heads. They have no mercy, empathy, or even pity for the rest of us.

Yes, they are evil. With three exclamation points.

They will not stay defeated even when their evil has been punished in multiple elections. They will do any evil thing necessary to stay in power.

Joe Biden solved the many fundamental problems Don Cheetoh Trumpaloney caused with tax cuts for billionaires that reduced our government’s income, and mishandling of the Covid pandemic crisis that caused a million deaths, half of which should have been prevented, and crashing the economy because of both of the previous missteps. Joe had the economy coming back, the employment rate at the highest levels in fifty years, inflation overcome after painful measures, and a needed infrastructure bill that was years late in being passed. But Republicans can’t have that. They need Grandpa Joe to be unsuccessful so they can continue to corruptly enjoy power. So, like the mobster criminals they are, they took a hostage and threatened to kill it unless all the progress made is undone.

They have no right to refuse to pay the government’s debts. The budget negotiations are the proper place to make the changes they want. But they are going to have what they want by extortion, or they will wreck the world economy by defaulting on the debt. Solely because they are determined to have everything they want, and no one else matters to them.

They want to control everything school children read and think and learn, but they will not protect them from murderers with AR-15s by passing sensible gun laws. And they want schools to all be private so white kids of rich households don’t have to deal with minorities or poor kids. Public-school-type kids can learn in prison or on the job in the meat-packing plant.

They want to prevent voting by anyone they can identify as a possible Democratic voter. No black people. No Hispanics. No liberals. No young people who are not identifiably Young Republicans. No Jews. And definitely no Muslims.

And they want to be able to tell you what to think, how to worship, how hard to work, and to accept the lowest possible pay for it.

They are the worst sort of selfish, single-minded, melodrama villains. And if Grandpa Joe and Dudley Dooright are going to get us off the railroad tracks in only a week, they both need to stop riding the white horse backwords.

Things go up and down. A publisher wants to talk to me about A Field Guide to Fauns. I don’t think he’s read it, and will probably ask me to invest money in publishing it. But it is about living in a residential nudist park and most of the characters are naked for most of the story. Think he’ll continue talking about my book after I tell him that?

But my Chromebook inexplicably broke down this evening. The screen was on but completely black. Fortunately, I have a second laptop, and half of another one. (It works half the time, and when it works, it takes twice as much time to do anything.)

And the city sent me an ultimatum about mowing the lawn and getting rid of the weeds that were blossoming. Of course, everybody in the neighborhood had gotten behind in lawn mowing because of the rain that struck every other day the last two weeks, and threatened to rain every day in between. But the city knows that I am old, arthritic, and slowing down, the most likely one to not get it done and have to pay the $2000-dollar-a-day fine Fooled them. I had started yardwork two days before their threatening court order arrived and I finished a whole day ahead of their deadline.

The worry is…

…That I am not writing as much as I used to before I had Covid.

…That the Republicans will destroy the world economy just to make Biden look like a loser.

…That somewhere, somehow, a duck is watching me.

…That I won’t get to see any more Marvel movies because of the writers’ strike, Jonathan Majors’ legal troubles, and the short time I probably have left to live.

…That Mickey Mouse when he’s 100 years old won’t still be the Mickey Mouse from Steamboat Willie in 1928.

…That the Cardinals’ baseball team won’t have a winning season.

…That a tornado or a wildfire or a heatwave will kill me before diabetes or Parkinson’s or stroke can.

…That global warming and climate change will make us extinct in 20 years.

…That my books will never get a fair chance to be read by kids who need to read them.

…That Prexy 45 will get to be 47 and eventually the Undead Evil Emperor of the United States.

…That all these wonderful books are being banned in Republican States, but no Evil Republican Governor with spiders in his soul has been thoughtful enough to ban any of my books.

…That Florida is not underwater yet where it belongs.

… That Cardinals are singing this Spring, but nobody else is really listening to their songs.