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“How do you do, Mickey?”

“How do I do what?”

“I just meant to say, hello, how have you been?“

“Well, I thought I was gonna die last night.”

“Is something wrong? Heart maybe?”

“No. Just an ugly premonition. I get them all of the time. And I woke up alive this morning anyway. The joke is on whichever trickster god or goddess it was that gave me the neck-prickling premonition last night.”

“Well, I, for one, am glad you didn’t have the information right. What would the world be like without you in it?”

“Well, I often think it wouldn’t make any difference if I were not here. Other people draw pictures like I do. Other people write stories. Theirs are probably better than mine.”

“Actually, I think you are one of a kind. Your artistic vision is unique and no one I know of writes stories quite like you do. Didn’t you just get another 5-star review on Snow Babies?”

“Yes, but it was just Amazon putting back one they had removed because they thought it wasn’t real.”

“Why did they do that?”

“Well, Amazon never explains anything. But I think it was because of the word complexing that the reviewer used. The way it was used made you think he was illiterate or something. But then the most recent reviewer explained the central metaphor of the quilt and made it clear that it was a story with a complex plot. Apparently they gave the complexing-guy the benefit of the doubt. Complexing is a real word. It was merely used very awkwardly.”‘

“So, you’re not dead or dying, and you are apparently a good writer, at least, according to your reviewers.”

“Actually, I’m just making a lot of nothing out of something. It’s what I always do. I am also not unhappy with my life the way it is. Even if it all ends today, I am satisfied that it was a good life, well-lived. Not everyone can say that.”

“You once had a spirograph like the one in the picture, right?”

“Yeah. In fact, you see that spiral drawing in the top diamond-box?”

“Yeah.”

“That was the hardest one to do without having your hand slip and messing the whole design up. I worked for days with many hours in them before I finally got one perfect. And after that I didn’t really care so much about doing Spirograph any more. Though I wish I still had that old thing.”

“You are going to write more stories, aren’t you?”

“Are you worried that because Snow Babies is so good, I’ll lose interest?”

“Yeah… kinda.”

“If that were gonna happen, I would’ve stopped at three published books. Number 20 starts a free promotion tomorrow.””

“So, when is the book free?”

“From Friday, June 18th until Tuesday, June 22nd.”

“Wow. Say, do you know who you’ve been talking to this whole time?”

“Hmmm…. Either the cardinal in that first picture, Cissy Moonskipper herself, or maybe me. I do talk to myself like a crazy old coot.”

“Yes, I’m very much all three. I am the self-examing side of you, your other me.”

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.

Sing Sad Songs is among the five best stories I have ever written. I usually place it as number 3 actually. It was going along full steam getting only five-star reviews on Amazon. And then somebody’s mother, or possibly anonymous old maid, decided to troll it as an evil book.

The problem, it seems, was that twelve year old kids are not allowed to talk about sex in a humor novel, even if the conversations are with older peers in private and that person gave sound be-cautious-and-don’t-risk-it advice. To be clear, there were no actual sex scenes depicted anywhere in the book. Other reviewers loved the book. One even thought it should be recommended to school libraries as being good for middle-school kids. But not anonymous reader. She suggested that the other reviewers were either idiots or weren’t smart enough to know what they were reading.

Remember, this is a humor blog. I find things funny about the terrible irony of how this book was treated. My complaint to Amazon was not profanity-laced or anything. I simply did not believe reviewers should impugn the remarks of other reviewers. I was even told by the Amazon adjudicator of justice that I was not given the right to comment on this review because every reviewer is entitled to their opinion, Oh, well… we all know the relationship between stupid people and an appreciation of ironic twists of fate.

Anyway, the punishments did not end there.

The story is about a boy who grew up in France and was in the car with his twin sister and both parents when it went off the cliff. The only family members who could take him in as the only survivor in the crash were his cousins Victor, Richard, Kelly, and Richard’s young son Billy Martin who all lived together in one house in Norwall, Iowa. They are a dysfunctional family who own and operate a small town bar and grill, two brothers and a sister. Nobody wants another family member (except for young Billy) in a family that none of the members really want to be in.

And while the new arrangement has its difficulties, Francois begins to sing sad songs from the bar’s new karaoke machine. And his singing is a hit with all who hear it. The bar and grill begins to prosper from the show he puts on. Soon everybody is falling in love with the sad boy from France.

The story is intended to make you cry at the end. But it should make you laugh too. I can’t tell you more than that without spoiling the book.

What the book is not is child pornography. I even went in and removed the words that made the anonymous reader rain fire on my book.

But Amazon lowered the rating from two stars to one. Then they went to my other books, found a review on Magical Miss Morgan that used the word “Questionable” (referring to the main character’s decisions as a teacher, which is part of the plot) and lowered that book’s rating from a four to a three. Apparently Amazon exacts maximum revenge on anyone who lodges a complaint about a review.

On my last free-book promotion for this book, I only gave away one copy. I don’t know whether that is because of this one bad review, or if it was the glitch that Amazon suffered over the weekend that removed several books from my author’s page even though, when I checked, all of the books were still for sale the whole time. Sing Sad Songs was one of those glitched books. According to other self-published authors, this happened to many others as well.

So, now there is nothing for it but to endure it. Such is life. Sing Sad Songs has had some sad luck.

The end is in sight for AeroQuest 4. I have two chapters left in Ged Aero’s story arc, and one cross-over chapter, plus the finale chapter with the time-travelers once again being quirky and odd for reasons to be explained later.

I have, however, lost momentum with that novel and continue to work more on Cissy Moonskipper instead.

That book has a story that parallels Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. Like that story Cissy is aware of others, dangerous people like the ones who killed her brother, and she is spending time trying to prepare to defend herself should those other bad folks come to her little island in space, the Moonskipper family’s free trader space ship.

Her time as the lone survivor on the deserted starship is about to come to an end too as she is about to acquire her own version of Crusoe’s “man Friday.” It should be noted, however, that her Friday will not be a “man” in more ways than one.

Another factor in the fragmented writing life of Mickey is that, as of today, all members of this household are vaccinated (except for the dog who gets her shots Monday.) Both Henry, my number two son, and the Princess, my daughter, got their one-shot J&J vaccines at the local school district’s Health and Human Services office. It seems the entire Beyer family will survive the Covid Pandemic.

The rainy weather in Texas, not the usual thing for this time of year, has left me with a head full of allergic reactions to pollen and a body full of arthritis pains from the unseasonably cold weather. Hence the short re-hash of old ideas in a shortened post for today. Hey, I got writing done. And when I feel bad, short posts are excusable.