Jan. 31, 2003 - 21:02 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

Audience

As usual there is an end of the week pop quiz. It is the Friday Five

1. - As a child, who was your favorite super hero/heroine ? Why ?

A. - Tom Mix. Why ? I lived in the west and related to his portrayal of the best kind of westerner in my childish eyes.

2. - What was one thing you always wanted as a child but never got ?

A. - A Lionel electric train and miles of tracks.

3. - What's the furthest from home you've been ?

A. - Denver is my home. I have not the means to tell really, it was either Ashdod, Israel or Binh Thuy on the Delta of Vietnam.

What is the one thing you wanted to learn but haven't yet ?

A. - To keep my damn mouth shut !

5. - What are your plans for the weekend ?

A. - Saturday, get a haircut, pick up and clean up around the apartment - lunch out with youngest son. As late as I can, make guacamole for Sunday at oldest son's church. Sunday, get gussied up and attend a Commissioning Ceremony of oldest son's daughter and husband to work in a mission hospital in Ecuador. He is a doctor and our grandaughter has horticultural talents which will be used, no doubt and of course raising two little boys. Eating afterwards. Sunday afternoon -- coming home shedding our shoes, reading the Sunday Paper (notice the caps) and generally relaxing.

First weekend I have had much to say, so, I said it.

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Today while riding shotgun with Heather and with little for me to do but wait while she did what she needed to do, I donned my imaginary underwater gear, scuba & goggles maybe, and decided to look at people as fish in an aquarium.

Of course I'm crazy, you knew that already.

There were the bottom feeders, stooped down, looking at things on the lower shelf. Picking things up now and then resembling the fish that keep an aquarium clean. Then there are the clusters of folk, facing the same way possibly talking -- not sure -- who remind me of the Pencil fish I have seen. Right. Then over there a bunch of Bettas ready to fight at the first sign of anyone on their territory, ready to attack someone trying to take anything off their personal shelves. Now and then squaring off a each other. There are the super overdressed, flashy dudes and dudettes, Neon tetras maybe. They cut a wide swath blowing folk out of their way just by their flash. Then the big folk, slowly moving, taking up much space and trailing kids or husbands much like Angel Fish trail appendages. Periodically people with sacks of groceries in their arms dash out of the store heedless of traffic, much like Hatchet Fish jumping out of an aquarium. I guess there are more varities of people than there are tropical fish I have seen, but the whole works shows up much like the scene in an aquarium. Moving at different speeds, with different aims. Big difference though is that occasionally some fishperson one will make a misstep and graze or collide with another fishperson, peoplefish move around more deftly and swim without collision. Amongst all the big fish are the swarms of Guppies and Guppie Puppies -- children in people language, young and older.

Heather would come up and say, "What are you looking at and thinking about, you have the weirdest look on your face ?" I would tell her, "The weird look comes natural and you wouldn't believe what I am watching and imagining." Not seeing any young, intriguing, bouncy ladies floating around, Heather would just shake her head and say, "Come on, we have to go pick up ? whatever.

I can build in my imagination most anything I want to, but I can't get anyone else to live there with me.

Myself ? I am but an old man and classified as Audience . . . . . . . .

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