
Bearing chocolate came a Dandy
Skippy Suzie always handy
Down at the seashore
Tried merging once more
But only got sandy candy
Taking what life throws at me one pitch at a time

The turbulence created
For unsmoothing smooth currents
With hungers satiated
By flowing eddy servants
Stuffs voids with a waving hand
Blurred vision vortex fillers
Left barely able to stand
Up on twin crumbling pillars
Succumbs again to forces
Repeats past current courses

While foraging around he saw zip, zilch, nada. This gerbil in wonderland found nothing but scarcity. Living his life with a fork in a world of soup, His one find; a bottled aftershave labeled “Banshee”. Though intrigued, the furry little critter needed no pheromone smothering tincture. It would only prolong his amorous dry spell.

Working in downtown Chicago of the nineteen eighties, I witnessed first hand the class warfare dujour. The jagged edge of the serrated social strata was clearly defined. You had your “fern bars”, where the yuppies (Young Urban Professionals) went. Then you had your tried and true old timey taverns, where the yuffies (Young Urban Failures) were known to gather. Both types of establishments were clustered together in or near The Loop
Pardon my gross generalizations, but I feel comfortable making that observation in hindsight. Then as in now, no faction has cornered the market on knuckleheads. Both groups grinding against each other in the serrated gears of commerce.
Ah, good times .

Late Friday Night
Just turned nineteen
That sweet spot in time
The four years
Beer and wine drinking age
Dropped just in time
Now legal for a change
My now erstwhile crew
Would roll into Scatscio's
For a pitcher or two
Plus a marginal pizza
That left the roof of your mouth
Burned but satisfied
Hugo would tickle the ivories
In this ersatz piano lounge
My introduction to
Adult late night entertainment
Just about the time
This song appeared
On the FM radio playlist
Scatscio's was in
A large frame house
Transformed into
A neighborhood lounge
I don't remember
Which of our crew discovered
The pair of blue boxer shorts
Under a square piece
Of loose particle board
Lying on the floor
In the upstairs terlet
But for many years
When going to hear Hugo
For a quaff and a munch
One of us was compelled
To do the underpants check
By lifting the board
For a peek and a giggle
The blue boxers stayed
Silent and persistently present
Under a particle board
Lying on the floor
Of the piano lounge terlet

Growing up in a household where the adults where born respectively in 1881, 1906, and 1916; this was not only high comedy but a self help recording. So stop whining, here’s some Merthiolate to put on your boo boo, and go back out to play. Don’t come back until the street lamps go on. The only onerous was on me.