Crookshank: Minor Basketball Legend

On the edge of Hoosier National Forest, Indiana, USA, lies the Crookshank family homestead nestled amongst the greenest tall pines just on the left hip of a low lying mountain range. Eleven generations of Crookshanks have called the Hoosier state home (even prior to statehood in 1816 ), but that home court winning streak came to an abrupt and angry end when Wallace Earnest Crookshank IV (“Wally”) moved his family to neighboring and equally basketball-loving state of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, USA.

As father-son spats go, the Crookshanks have seen and survived their fair share, less than most, more than some. But the familial peace of this branch of the Crookshanks was shattered seemingly beyond repair when Wally and his dad "Trip" (Wallace III) Crookshank disagreed over Wally’s favorite gal, soon-to-be-wife, Isabella.

Turns out, the Crookshanks are a capable bunch of gentlemen farmers (and gentlelady), with a keen eye for picking a good melon, literally. This melon-pickin’ skill carried over from farming into other areas of their lives and served them well, whether in business, theology, which cousin to choose for a pick-up game of hoop, or in choosing a spouse. It is said that a Crookshank can spot an ill-intentioned, ulterior motive a mile away, and detect manure before an outsider has a chance to put shovel into pile. They are often called “wise behind their ears” for their slightly protruding listening discs, but it’s the “wise beyond their years” knack for making good decisions that has resulted in the family Crookshank choosing spouses with amazing accuracy of darn near 90% -- making for an odd thing really when a Crookshank marriage doesn’t take root and blossom.

And so it was that Trip Crookshank simply did not agree with Wallace-the-lesser’s decision to spend his hard-earned savings on an engagement ring for Isabella Smith of the French Lick, Indiana Smith’s. To Trip’s way of thinking, they didn’t know her long enough and not enough was known about Isabella or her family. Wally was smitten, however, and so off he and his new bride went to Prospect, Kentucky, to start a new life, away from prying eyes (he felt) of family who might be judging him and the 18-yr-old's ability to discern for himself his choice of mate, thank you very much. Eighteen months and one baby boy later, Wally returned to Indiana with his son Wesley Ellis Crookshank riding shotgun -- no longer smitten, but rather somewhat smote after Isabella-the-lesser-half ran off with a Kentucky wildcat heading out west to make his fortune in California in the motion picture business. Wally was now part of the dubious 10% crowd that chose or guessed wrong on the multiple-choice exam of love.

(Part II cont'd)

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Windy LA (Doubting Son)

Palms and palms, shake and they yaw,
palms and palms, lovely and grand.
If the wind she blows, look out below,
for the fronds of palms fall and they land.

The palms they tall, 100 foot land,
with span 20 per block.
Untold planted in L.A. Moderne, arranged in lines not stands.
And when windy, my man, Myles my boy, palms and palms they rock.

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French but not Quite a Francophile

I have an ambivalent relationship with the French. They have this bad habit of separating the Royals from their heads, and then lopping off the heads of passersby and bystanders alike, especially abundantly available courtiers and plutocrats. An estimated 18,000 suspiciously non-revolutionary types were guillotined like carrots on a cutting board and drowned with nefarious zeal during the Reign of Terror. The deChristianised French continued their zealous ways by rounding up their non-Christian citizens during WWII and shipped them off in boxcars (about 75,000 French Jews were betrayed by those Vichy bastards). To this day, some 65 years later, the French government will not allow any "anonymous" reporting or tips to be collected about their citizens (either through tip-lines or worker hot-lines or whatnot). They still have a bad association with snoops who snoop about in their snoopy ways -- and for good reason.

In post-modern France, the government bends over backwards to improve how they treat their citizens, accepting everyone and rejecting few. Many believe recent French administrations have gone too far in their precatory offerings, and the result has been the de facto capture of once quaint cities by radicalized Muslims. Today their citizenry is under fire by an idea as pernicious as any slithering worldview that's ever hopped under their collective Gallic nose. Some day they'll get it right. I mean this is the birth place of the Salon and The Enlightenment for Pierre's sake! When push comes to shove -- it already has and will again with the Islamicists -- the French will once again find inspiration in their tripartite motto of Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité ou la mort. I just hope it doesn't come to the death part.

But, for all their faults, my French forebears have style ... no they have elan. I mean a mid-level bureaucrat having espresso curbside in his bespoke suit appears to the average Yank as Cary Grant. Take an American similarly situated and you have Al Bundy, replete with hand down his pants sitting on Archie Bunker's couch. As much as I love Americana (especially Pax Americana), the French have much to admire. Theirs is the cafe society with its multilinguistic sophisticates, all wearing ensembles sui generis.

They even have a calculation for le affair. Here I am not speaking about the adulterous type, but the middle-aged man courting the young coquette seemingly half his paunchy self kind. The French run the calculus amore thusly: take your average MPB male (male-pattern baldness), divide his age by half, and then add 7. Et voila, 60 yr-old Cary Grant can date Grace Kelly if she is *(60/2 = 30 + 7) 37 years-old!!!

Gotta love the French. See my ambivalence? For more French-centric entries, click here!
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Unknown Man

You who are not known. I who am barely known to myself. Ash-heaped dreams, not of conscious accord, unilateral in action, self-inflicted by Adamic nature ... and a weak jaw.

Twice bitten, yet twice blessed with cherubs. More love without a love, though crushed the cuckold curse, a quiver (and life) full of two boys yet to be men, with blessings sought to give.

Decades of mistakes, and another decade of amelioration before restoration come. Hard work is good for the soul, but talent buried is not rewarded. Focused on Creator and the menial task, a better man to come.

Morning Star.  A new page. A new fountain pen and fount of possibilities . . . and restoration come (and restoration come).

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