"Fall,& Gracie Return!"

Hi gang. Happy daze! Two of my favorite things are back,..in a way. Fall, and my free rangeing kat Gracie have come back to the bossom of my affections.

I just have to tell you this. This just happened as I was writing. As I put the period on the last sentence the phone rings. I'm in the newsroom of Wbai where I work. The call was from the head of public relations for the United Nations. Yeah,...'that' United Nations.

Seems some of our more insane radio listeners are tying up their phone lines with insane calls. All this stems she told me from our "drivetime" show yesterday afternoon in which the host attacked the U.N. for reasons that aren't exactly clear.

In anycase some of our nuttier listeners have been besieging the U.N. w/ as I said incoherent calls. I tell'ya folks you can't make this stuff up. Anyhow the upshot is they're going to lift our accreditation if we don't tell these loonies to back off.

How about that. Here I am minding my own business playing with my blog, and the whole U.N. calls up to threaten me. Hey is this fun or what? Most folks are only threatened by their electric company, but I got the whole U.N. on the phone give'n me hell.

'Boy this is the life. Where else could this happen!

I just love New York,...and so does Gracie!

(Below is my old "Scout" story. A fan wanted to see it again,...here ya go.)


UNCLE SIDNEY vs THE BOY SCOUTS"


Well it was the early 1960's, and "Morning in America!" Jackie Kennedy was "jazz'n up" the White House'n try'n to give us a little class fer christ's sakes. Dr. King, and brave other's was out there risking their lives for the soul of the nation. Because of that white folks was finally starting to feel a little ashamed of all them lynchings 'n stuff they let pass.

We was puting up the first satellites, and planning to go to the Moon! For those of you who wasn't there I got'a tell ya's this country was serious hot shit in them daze!

Dig it,.. our folks had good jobs, gas was cheap, we had tv's, and was watch'n 'em till the cows came home! The schools worked, the trash was collected, Santa came every Christmas, we had flesh colored bandaids, and any work'n Joe could buy a house. Shit! We had the H-frigg'n Bomb'n zillions of shiny new B-52's to deliver them! So nobody dared give us crap. Not only that, but polio was licked, and comic books was 10 cents.

Hey! Was that a "Golden Age" or what?!!

Well, in the middle of all that bright, and happy noise I decided I wanted to be a Boy Scout! 'Made sense given the times. I wanted to serve my country,..over easy with fries. It was "Camelot" big time back then, and I wanted to do my bit for "King'n Country!"

Also in my horny young mind I figured the scouts was just the place for "Colored Sissy" kid, with Anarchist tendencies. I figured getting in would be no problem. After all I was real smart, sweet'n polite as hell! I also had the "Blessed Virgin Mary", da frigg'n "Pope", my Mommy, and Robert Kennedy's Justice Department on my side.

How could I lose?

See I had gleeful visions of wearing one of them "Smokey the Bear" hats that scouts gets to have. Boy those things is neat! Better than cowboy hats anyday. Anyway I was dreaming of that, and all them badges, ribbons, medals, and assorted bright, and cheerful doodads they heaps on ya in the scouts for being a good kid.



'Course then there was the official "Boy Scouts of America!" hatchet, canteen, compass, handbook, and surplus national guard folding mini-shovel danceing like sugar plums over my innocent, and curly head! Eh,..to say nuthin' about them cute scout short pants, and kneesox. Well okay that was a later "fetish",..but still ya gets the idea.

Let me tell you of my innocent boyish scout'n visions,...

I saw me, and my new scout pal's out in the wilds of New Jersey,..track'n down mountain lions, diging up "Spanish Gold!", building tree house's, sighting UFO's. We'd be hot on the trail of "Atomic Spies", rescue'n katz, explore'n mysterious caves, and making friends with da Indians.

We'd be tying all sorts of knots, painting ourselves up like "Souix Warriors". We would eat wild berries, shit in the woods, wipe our butts with leaves. The lot of us would go running on all fours, and howl at da moon like wolves!

To relax we'd go skinny dipping, have kissing contests, circle jerks, doll parties, and build model airplanes!



At night under the stars we'd sing doo-wop songs, cook foot long koshur hot dogs over a roaring camp fire, and tell scary stories about deranged communist robots from Venus invading Nebraska. At bed time we'd set up a surplus air force parachute, and use it as our communal tent. We'd all recite our prayers, kiss each other good night, cuddle up like puppies, and slip into the gentle arms of Elysium. Perhaps some few might stay awake to chase fireflies or sing songs to each other. Oh, such a sweet, and innocent vision.



Unfortunately 'none' of this swell shit went down. What did happen was...

My Mom: "What did you say?!"

Scoutmaster: "Eh,..I'm sorry Mrs. Smith, but it's just policy". "There's nothing I can do about it"

"This troop doesn't admit coloreds".

My Mom: "But my son goes to this school which is integrated". "Your troop is part of this school"

Scoutmaster: "Technically yes, but the board has the final say in these matters".
"As I said I'm sorry we can't admit your son into our program."

My Mom was gonna slug this jerk, but didn't 'cause he seemed, (at least to her,..so she said). This cog ashamed of having to do this foul shit to someone.

I'd have slugged him anyway, and maybe burned the school down too. Anyhow the "I'm just following orders" drone went on to tell my Mom of another troop that was willing to take 'some' negros.

...Swell.

That bunch was a long bus ride away from where we lived so "thank", but "no thanks" said my Mom. So I made do with being looked after by the crazy old ladies at the community center. They taught me how to make paper mache dinosaurs. Okay they were very nice, but it wasn't the Scouts!


Of course at the time I didn't know any of this. My Mommy told me this whole bullshit story about their being no room in local troop troop that season. 'Made sense too. You have to remember it was the early 60's. The height of the "Baby Boom" era.

There were zillions of us kids all over the place. Hell, we was "Climb'n in through da windows!",..to quote Holden Caufield.

So yeah I bought it.

Next year I asked again,..same story. The year after that I didn't ask. I had other problems. '...like slamming face first into my wonderful teen years.


Well the seasons passed,..imagine the pages flying off a calender or hour glass's going nuts like in them old black'n white movies. The seasons passed, and with one thing, and another I found myself a young man.

Eh, perhaps I should put that another way. Never mind, look it was 1976 the Bi-Centennial year.

We'd just lost the Viet-Nam War, there were mile long lines for petrol, the economy was in the toilet. Ford Pinto's were spontaneously combusting on our highways. We'd stopped going to the moon, or anywhere else for that matter. People thought "platform shoes" were cool, and the first rumblings of the Drug War's, and AIDS were being heard, and lime green was 'in'.

Yeah the 1970's,...wonderful.

Well 70's or not you only get one "Bi-Centennial" to a country. So we celebrated. I had gone home to visit my folks. 'Back then was living out west. Stuff happened. I saw, and did interesting, terrible, and wonderful things out there. I never told no one about them strange days in my life. Not my family, not my pals, not my radio audience,...one day maybe.

But back to this particular story.

I was home sitting in the parlor watching the parades, and mayhem with my Mom on her color tv. Her first. Aw gee. I remember when I first saw color tv. Heck even the commercial looked good. Anyway as we watched there were these guys dressed in civil war uniforms re-enacting some battle.

After that six-gun tote'n cowboys showed up, and shot at each other for a while. Then some white guys came on dressed as Indians, and did some sort of phony native dance. There was a float with some actors pretending to be astronauts on the moon we no longer went to.

Next some old farts in funny hats driving "Model T's" chugged by. This was followed by a mess of high school "ROTC" drill teams goose stepping down 5th avenue like the Hitler Youth. They was flip'n their M-1 carbines all over da place, and not one was dropped!

Next a bunch'a folks rolled by dressed like pilgrims. They was drink'n Cokes on a flatbed pulled by oxen. Some "Rough Ryders' on horseback shot at some Cubans, and all this followed by poor slobs in hot dog suits shoveling up after them.

Yep! That's "America" okay. '..recognize her anywhere.

Well, after a while on comes the Boy Scouts,..hundreds of 'em! They was wearing their "Smokey the Bear" hats too! Wow them boys was have'n a great time march'n, and horse'n around with each other. I mentions to my Mother as all this is going on that it was too bad about all that "over crowding" when I was a kid. I told her how I really, really wanted to be a scout.

My Mommy gets quiet, she looks at me, and tells me the whole story..., all of it.

Like I said, parents, the good ones protects their kids. Protects their Innocence as long as they can.

Many many seasons later. Long after my Mommy had gone to Heaven. I got a call from my sister. She said her son, my youngest nephew had been called a "nigger" at school that day. He was still crying,..so was my sister. "..it begins I thought".

"Let your children enjoy their Innocence for as long as possible". But when the demons finally do breech your walls of love, and protection. Make them ready. Make them strong. Teach them to face the fire,..and Survive.

Amen.


Epiloge,



I still do want one of them "Smokey the Bear" hatz,...I really do.

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