winchesterstatues-thankyou - Monday Morning Memo

A NOTE FROM THE WIZARD OF ADS…

Early one morning about 12 years ago,
I was talking to Pennie in our bedroom when I made myself laugh.
The incident began when when Pennie responded to one of my
statements by saying, “What made you think of that?”
This triggered a quick reversal of thoughts as I retraced how one thing
had led to another in my head during the previous couple of minutes.
Have you ever done this?

As the mental leaps were sequentially retraced,
I described each of the thoughts to Pennie, then said,
“It’s like there’s a beagle in my brain that’s following a scent
that only the beagle can smell and I’m just following the beagle.”
After a moment’s reflection, I added,
“Everyone has a beagle in their brain, I think, but most people
keep it muzzled and in a cage.”
Then I looked at her, threw my arms in the air and began to shout,
“Free the beagle! Free the beagle! Free the beagle! Free the beagle!”
as I marched around the room.

We both laughed.
Moments like these are the constituent components of life.
I believe these are the moments we recall when we’re dying.

We should have more of these moments.
Everyone should. Everyone on earth.

And everyone
should free their beagle.

It occurred to me
this morning that I’ve never told that story. So now I have.

Free your beagle.

Roy H. Williams

“Ms. Yuka was now standing right next to Harold looking down at him.

‘Harold, where are you? It’s your turn to talk in front of the class.’

He looked up at her and she could see his eyes were about a quarter of the way filled with tears.

‘What? Talk about what?’

‘Talk about something ironic.’

From his point of view he could see her face over her perfect size breasts and it looked like it was just a head on a pair of tits and Harold thought, ‘What a wonderful world world this is – I thank God for this moment, if there is a God.’

He got up and walked toward the front of the class.

After several steps he passed Elizabeth sitting at her desk in her light blue sweater and turquoise barrette on the left side of her blonde head.

It seemed almost weird to see her actually sitting at her desk in the class instead of in a rocking chair with a stethoscope around her neck in an underground room in the cemetery.

She noticed him about as much as an ant notices a 747 flying overhead at 37,000 feet. Which would be a pattern he would experience with girls and women many many times his whole life.

He got up to Ms. Yuka’s desk and turned to face everybody and he could see that she had walked to the back of the class and was watching from there. Harold decided not to be nervous because it would be easier that way.

He thought of what was just happening in the room in the cemetery with the sound of the breeze in the trees and the water lapping and it reminded him of Walden Pond which was a few towns over from where he lived.

He looked at Elizabeth and she was looking at him.

Harold began to speak:

‘I think it’s ironic that every year thousands and thousands of people go to see where Henry Thoreau lived, a hermit. A famous hermit.’

‘I also find it interesting that his father had a business making pencils and then Henry became a writer. God bless you – if there is a God.’

Harold walked back to his seat and as he passed Elizabeth he very discreetly took in a deep breath to see if she had any kind of smell.

He inhaled so deeply that he got dizzy and almost bumped into Brenda’s desk then he got back on track and continued to his seat as Ms. Yuka said:

‘Very good, Harold.’

“

- Steven Wright, "Harold," p. 93-94, (Harold is a boy in the third grade.)