On the mantel
Of our home hearth
Sit the objects
That give life worth
A candle lighting
The dark of earth
A cup once painted
With paint and mirth
A Snoopy plaque
Announcing birth
And ceramic doll
Smiling o’er the hearth.
Slowing Down
I am definitely getting older. And tomorrow is not guaranteed.
I have serious health problems, and I live in a land where Republicans and the corporate overlords get to tell us all that if we don’t have enough wealth to forfeit for it, even though they keep raising the prices to make higher profits, then I am welcome to die and make room for someone who works harder for less money.
I generally laugh it off and continue to work harder. I have avoided the expense of insulin, which is very expensive because Big Pharma knows that if my life is threatened I’m likely to pay every cent I own for what will save my life. I walk at least 7,000 steps a day, usually more, and I eat the best food I can manage in small quantities, just like the diabetes experts taught me in 2004, back when I could still afford health care from specialists. I will continue to fight to live and do it without paying all my money to rich Republicans and corporate overlords who are fat and need to walk more and eat better themselves.
I could easily be dead of heart failure or stroke by tomorrow. And I don’t fear death. A quick, surprise end would be better than lingering suffering that drains my family of resources and wealth, the way the Republicans and corporate overlords hope it does. But my 90-year-old aunt in Iowa recently pointed out that both of my parents were in their late eighties before they passed away, and two of my four grandparents lived well into their eighties. My Grandma Beyer lived to 95, and I had two great grandparents that fell short of 100 by two years or less. It is possible I have time to get more done.
I did already complete a career in teaching for 31 years which is my primary claim to a life well-lived. And I was a successful teacher, at least according to the many former students that told me I made a difference to them and they remembered my class fondly… they couldn’t all be lying, could they?
But with my retirement, I invested my time as a storyteller. I have already published 19 novels and two books of essays. My best work was in Snow Babies, Catch a Falling Star, Sing Sad Songs, Recipes for Gingerbread Children, and The Baby Werewolf. And my storytelling has produced some things beyond those 21 books that I hope to finish.
And I do not feel like I haven’t done enough good storytelling in my life. Teachers are professional storytellers after all. So, if I drop dead ten minutes from now, I have not been cheated in that category either.
But I am having trouble with wandering thoughts, diabetic depression, forgetfulness, and arthritic fingers that constantly make me go back and retype things endlessly. I have recently gone whole weeks without working on my various works in progress. And I have only kept my blog-posting string going by reposting old classic posts every now and then.
If I am going to make further progress, it will be slower. I have not given up. But I am slowing down.
Filed under announcement
Hidden Kingdom… Chapter 2 Complete
Here is the link to the complete Chapter 1https://catchafallingstarbook.net/2018/11/24/hidden-kingdom-chapter-1-complete/
Filed under comic strips, fairies, Hidden Kingdom, humor, Paffooney
AeroQuest 5… Canto 151
Canto 151 – Harlequins
Smoky Hardretter and the synthezoid Sorcerer 27 stood over the operating table with a Mechanoid stretched out upon it. Mechanoids, of course, are deceased humanoids that have been reanimated by robotic implants and electronic reconstruction to make of them what are basically cyborgs, except for the fact that they have not merely been enhanced while still alive, they have been dug up out of graves and zombified by the Mechanoid-making process.
“This body in life was one of the best Imperial Guardsmen we ever had. He defended three different Triumvirs while he was alive. He had 500 clones that also served as guardsmen.” Smoky looked questioningly at Sorcerer after explaining the guardsman.
“This body will be perfect for our needs. He has been put through the tissue-regeneration protocols that I set up as an automated process?” Sorcerer grinned, something previous Sorcerers were not capable of doing.
“The nanobots are transforming the flesh now. It seems he is growing huge muscles as we watch.”
“Oh, yes. He will be an unbeatable warrior. He is not only going to be more powerful and more agile than any existing Mechanoid, but he will also be unkillable. His flesh is natural armor and quickly repairs itself when he is wounded. He will also be nearly impossible to hit because of his agility and camouflage.”
“Camouflage? He’s dressed in multicolored clown clothes!”
“That’s also why he’s called a Harlequin. He’s acrobatic enough to dodge bullets and plasma streams. And his combat dress produces strobing and flashing colored lights that will make targeting nearly impossible when the energy dampers are working at full power.”
“So, he will be like an acrobat? Flipping through the air to avoid being shot while firing his weapons from midair?”
“Now you’ve got the core idea,” said Sorcerer. “He will be capable of putting on a real show of power. And imagine how effective an entire squad of these troopers performing in unison will be.”
“I am impressed,” Smoky said.
The Mechanoid suddenly sat up. His face mask, obscuring the skull-like corpse head underneath, was a grinning, white clown mask.
“I can’t believe I’m alive again. What are your commands, Lord Hardretter?”
Smoky smiled contentedly. “I think we need to run some tests.”
Filed under aliens, humor, novel, NOVEL WRITING, Paffooney, satire, science fiction
In Defense of Corny Jokes
It will probably be clear that I am writing this post because I am currently reading 1941 daily strips from Al Capp’s Li’l Abner.
But I am definitely going to talk about corny jokes, not cheesy jokes, because I grew up in Iowa, not Wisconsin.
And, yes, that is example number one.
There is a certain way of telling a joke or tall tale that is unique to the farmyard. And it does not contain chicken poop, but rather, corn.
Of course, as you can see by this corn-colored definition of what corny means according to Collins Online Dictionary, the word is supposed to be an insult to corniness in jokery. That doesn’t sit well with the people of Iowa, where the tall corn grows. We are also obvious, sentimental, and not at all original. And we are proud of it. 
To tell a corny joke right, you have to set a simple scene, and make it clear what happened, and give the audience a simple cue for when to laugh.
For instance, there was the time that Cudgel Murphy had a cat problem with his car, the 1954 Austin Hereford that he has driven since dinosaurs walked the earth. It seems there was this time in 1988 when he kept having engine trouble. The engine would sputter and cough and die, and when Cudgel opened it, he would find a half-eaten dead pigeon or other random bird carcass gumming up the works. He couldn’t for the life of him figure out how dead birds were getting into his car engine. But his grandson Danny happened to see the neighbor’s big tabby tomcat carrying a pigeon he had killed under the front of Grampy’s car, apparently enjoying a fowl meal in the dark with a nice warm engine to lay the food on. Sure enough, when they checked the engine later, there was the half-eaten dead bird laying across one end of the fan belt.
So Cudgel set up a vigil, assigning times for himself, Danny, and his younger grandson Mike to watch for signs of that damned cat taking another bird under the hood of the Austin. With only two day’s worth of watching under their belts, Mike came running into the Murphy kitchen with the news.
“Grampy! I seen that damned cat taking a dead bird under your car! He’s in there right now!”
So Cudgel rushed out, turned the engine on, and stomped on the gas.
There were some worrisome thumps and bangs under the hood, and then the cat shot out from under the front of the car spewing howls and cat curses all the way up the nearest tree.
Cudgel laughed hard and finally caught his breath to say, “How about that, Mike? I’ll bet James Bond doesn’t have a car that can shoot angry cats out the front!”
Now, before you chastise me for enjoying cruelty to cats, I hope you will remember that Cudgel Murphy is a fictional character, and I am merely illustrating the idea behind corny jokes. And, besides, that cat really had it coming to him.
Filed under goofy thoughts, humor, Iowa, Paffooney, satire, Uncategorized, writing humor
Being Excessively Creative
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It is an unusual position to be in as a kid in the school room to be the creative kid. First and foremost because you will forever be known as the weirdo, the spaceman, the egghead.
How do I know that? Because I was that kid. And I grew up to teach that kid. And now that I am retired as a teacher, I am still that kid.
If there was a problem to be solved, a picture to be drawn, a group assignment that required somebody to actually think, I was the kid that everybody wanted to be in their group or be their partner. (That time that Reggie and I blew up the test tube of copper sulfate in Mr. Wilson’s chemistry lab doesn’t count because, although I am the one who dropped it, he’s the one who heated up my fingers with the blowtorch. Honest, Mr. Wilson, it is true.) But if it was picking teams on the playground, I was the last loser to be called, even though I was pretty good at softball, pretty good at dodgeball, great at volleyball, and usually the leading scorer in soccer (of course we are talking an Iowa schoolyard in the 60’s where soccer was a sport from Mars.) And as an adult, I enjoyed teaching the creative kids more than the rest because I actually understood them when they explained what they were doing and why, and I was even able to laugh at their knit-witty jokes (yes, I am including those jokes made of yarn with that pun). Creative kids speak a language from another world. If you are creative too, you already know that. And if you aren’t creative… well, how foo-foo-metric for you.
And another unfortunate side effect of the creative life is that you make stuff. You don’t have to be seriously infected by bites from the cartoon bug or the art bug to be like that. My daughter is making a suit of armor for herself from a flat sheet of aluminum that she is pounding out by hand, painting with spray paint and painter’s tape, and edging with felt. After she’s done with it this Halloween, it will go on one of the piles of collections and models and dolls and stuffed toys and… Of course, sooner or later one of those piles is going to come to life and eat the house. There is no place left to display stuff and store stuff and keep stuff that is far enough away from potential radioactive spider bites. I have scars on my fingers from exactor knife accidents, oil paint, and acrylic paint and enamel permanently under my fingernails. Shelves full of dolls rescued and restored from Goodwill toy bins, dolls collected from sale bins at Walmart, Toys-R-Us, and Kaybee, and action figures saved even from childhood in the 60’s are taking over the house and in an uproar, demanding to be played with rather than ignored. (Didn’t know dolls can actually talk? Haven’t you learned anything from John Lasseter?)
Anyway, it is tough to go through life being excessively creative. I have art projects growing out of my ears. And book publishers are calling me because my award-winning book is not generating sales in spite of two awards, 5-star reviews, and generally good quality, but the only solutions they have cost ME money I don’t have. Oh, well, at least it isn’t boring to be me.
So, What Does God Think About Atheists?
It is a question I can’t help thinking about even though I am an atheist. Although, to get technical about it, it is a question I think about because I am technically an agnostic. I do not know if God exists or not. So, when I pray to him and ask the question, “God, are You real?” He says loudly, “Don;’t be stupid, Mickey! That is the least important question in the universe!”
I have to wonder at that. If God will punish me forever in a firey pit where I will have to listen to Ben Shapiro talk endlessly while I am lying naked on a bed of broken glass and maggots for not believing in God and not using the proper name for God or not singing the right songs and not talking about the right holy stories about God’s chosen people, then I might want to avoid that outcome.
Then God declares from on high, “Stupid Mickey! There are no rewards or punishments coming from God. How hypocritical would I be if I declared myself a God of Love and Forgiveness and then set the universe in motion only to destroy or torture sentient beings who do things I don’t like, or reward behavior I do approve of? If I really exist, I am beyond trying to correct any supposed flaws in creation. If I did that I would not be God, and therefore not real.”
So, if that’s true, and admittedly I got that truth from loud voices in my own head, then how can I be good without religion?
“Stupid Mickey! You simply do what you know you should do due to the totality of your experiences and education.”
But that pronouncement from God leads me to wonder, “What if my experiences and education lead me to decide to do bad things? I did turn myself into a nudist after I retired as a teacher.”
“But if you believe that what you have done is evil and wrong, you would correct the behavior, would you not? You drew that portrait of a nudist girl with love and care for what you should not violate about her young life. She was pleased by it. Nothing you did in the process was sexual.”
“Are you saying, God, that what I did was actually good?”
“You are the only one who can answer that question, Stupid Mickey. After all, if God had wanted people to be nudists, He wouldn’t have had everyone be born fully dressed in clothing.”
“Is that supposed to be a joke, God?”
“Stupid Mickey, I am just a loud voice in your head, remember?”
“Oh, right.”
Several moments of silence follow.
“So, is it okay with you that I believe I am an atheist who believes in God?”
“You need to tell me.”
Filed under Uncategorized
A Little Bit .Gif-fy… Not Goofy
Sometimes life gets a bit tough when you are old and diabetic and grumpy all the time… and your kids are still teenagers… and you have to spend four hours a day driving them to two different schools in two different Dallas suburbs… and it rains one day and swelters you in Texas heat the next… and the drive home occurs during rush hour… and you just can’t think beyond loud thoughts like; “Why does that stop light turn red right before I get there?” and “Why can’t somebody teach teenagers how to drive in a high school parking lot?!” and “Why is the sun so bright and in my eyes going BOTH DIRECTIONS?!?” and “Why is the worst driver in Texas always the one right in front of me?!?!!!”
And then you realize, you can’t think any more to make a decent post for your blog. You are dead tired and out of ideas, though still able to type… even though you are apparently dead according to this sentence. So what do you post? You need some chocolate and iced tea for your brain. And you decide it is better to come out of the closet for being .gif-goofy and collecting .gif’s. You heard right. I mean .gif’s. I am not talking about peanut butter. And I didn’t misspell goofs. I mean those crazy moving things on the internet where the motion is repetitive and the promotion of the motion is mindless. Yes, those moving-picture things called .gif’s.
Like this one;
Rainbow Dash is really going after that guitar riff in this guitar-riff .gif! And I didn’t steal this from Deviantart. I stole it from somebody else who stole it from Deviantart.
And then I have an audience for her solo;
And these .gif’s make me happy. Happy like a frog;
And why do these minor miracles of motion make me happy? I don’t know. But they do.
And I must not be the only one. Somebody went to a great deal of work to create some of these:
And one might wonder if it is an evil thing to be happy about being .gif-goofy. But in my experience, they only fascinate the eyes for a short while and alter my mood in goofy weird ways.
So now that I’m all goofed up, let me end with one more.
So, now, these .gif’s have tamed me, and I am unique in all the world.
Filed under artwork, humor, memes, strange and wonderful ideas about life
Female Figures on Art Day
Filed under artwork
Catch a Falling Star 
Ghostly Reflections
So, I am probably the last stupid goomer who should be writing this post. But I do have a lot to say on the subject that will more than fill a 500-word essay.
At my age and level of poor health, I think about ghosts a lot because I may soon be one. In fact, my 2014 novel, Snow Babies has ghosts in it. And some of the characters in it freeze to death and become snow ghosts. But it doesn’t work like that in real-world science. My ghosts are all basically metaphorical and really are more about people and people’s perception of life, love, and each other.
Ghosts really only live in the mind. They are merely memories, un-expectedly recalled people, pains, and moments of pandemonium.
I have recently been watching the new Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House. It creeps me out because it latches on to the idea that ghosts haunt us through the revisitation in our minds of old trauma, old mistakes, old regrets… We are never truly safe from ghosts, no matter how far under the covers we go in our beds, deep in the dark and haunted night. Ghosts are always right there with us because they only live inside us.
I am haunted by ghosts of my own. Besides the ghost dog that mysteriously wanders about our house at night and is seen only out of the corners of our eyes, there is the ghost of the sexual assault I endured at the age of ten by a fifteen-year-old neighbor. That ghost haunts me still, though my attacker has died. I still can’t name him. Not because I fear he can rise up out of the grave to hurt me again, but because of what revealing what he did, and how it would injure his innocent family members who are still alive and still known to my family, will cause more hurt than healing. That is a ghost who will never go away. And he infects my fiction to the point that he is the secret villain of the novel I am now working on. In fact, the next four novels in a row are influenced by him.
But my ghost stories are not horror stories.
I write humorous stories that use ghosts as metaphors, to represent ideas, not to scare the reader. In a true horror story, there has to be that lurking feeling of foreboding, that sense that, no matter what you do, or what the main character you identify with does, things probably won’t turn out all right. Stephen King is a master of that. H.P. Lovecraft is even better.
But as for me, I firmly believe in the power of laughter, and that love can settle all old ghosts back in their graves. I have forgiven the man who sexually tortured me and nearly destroyed me as a child. And I have vowed never to reveal his name to protect those he loved as well as those I love. If he hurt anyone else, they have remained silent for a lifetime too. And I have never been afraid of the ghost dog in our house. He has made me jump in the night more than once, but I don’t fear him. If he were real, he would be the ghost of a beloved pet and a former protector of the house. And besides, he is probably all in my stupid old head thanks to nearly blind eyes when I do not have my glasses on.
I don’t believe in ghosts.
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Filed under cartoons, commentary, ghost stories, goofy thoughts, humor, Paffooney, strange and wonderful ideas about life
Tagged as ghosts