Category: Prose

I heard it at the garden gate
Carrots, turnips, all irate
Lettuce, sprouts and green beans too
Angry vegetables in a stew

“We’ve got an image to protect
So how come when a car gets wrecked
The headlines scream the victim’s fate
‘He’s in a vegetative state’

Now veggies aren’t a brilliant bunch
Less intellect, more taste and crunch
But we hurt from this cruel campaign
Comparing greens to scrambled brains

Help put an end to all the fuss!
‘Carnivorous state’ works for us”

                                                       c2013pn

Christian Mingle, Jewish Singles
Hindu Harmony, Muslim Match
Finding someone with your beliefs
Seems okay, but there’s just one catch

Faith is key to all religions
Sacred guidance from above
So shouldn’t it be God who helps you
And not your email: You’ve got love

Our memories of segregation
Should be enough to set us straight
When people exclude other people
It sparks resentment, fear and hate

So exit those computer sites
With romance data aimed at you
Get out into the open air
And fall in love without a clue

c2013pn

Confucius say, “How far you’ve sunk
Your country filled with Chinese junk”
We should have guessed their strategy
When we first learned that MSG
Was added to the Crab Rangoon
To make sure we’d go back there soon

Our hunger spread beyond cuisines
To sneakers, blenders and flat-screens
Toys and toothpaste joined the list
At prices no one could resist

You’d think that China’s goals were met
Once they secured our nation’s debt
But like a meal of wontons fried
Their appetite’s not satisfied

Now they’re hacking our computers
Beijing sanctioning these looters
It’s time consumers turn the tables
Boycott goods with Chinese labels!

c2013pn

Way back in 1929
It wasn’t odd to see a line
Of men in hats with brims down low
Collars up so folks won’t know

They needed work, out on the street
Some even had to beg to eat
And now depression’s back again
The hats have changed, so have the men

Instead of wearing down their shoes
Most drive to their job interviews
Sad faces behind windshield glass
They blend in with the working class

The highway lets them still belong
While cruising to an Eagles song
Now even that joy might be lost
As drivers struggle with the cost

Of filling tanks with gasoline
Those unemployed may soon be seen
Behind the wheel parked at the curb
Running on empty, do not disturb

c2013pn

We all have those, “Where were you?” moments in our lives. Now, on the 35th anniversary of the Blizzard of 1978 those of us who lived through it get to reminisce and have a laugh, a cry or just relive a moment from a simpler time when we all pulled together at a very difficult moment.

Ten years ago, the Providence Journal solicited stories of that day from readers and printed some of the best. I submitted mine anonymously since I was a newsroom employee, and a member of the executive board of the Providence Newspaper Guild. I held out little hope of my story getting recounted, but it was deemed one of the best submissions and it ran in that anniversary issue. Below is how I spent my Feb. 6, 1978.

It all began in mid-December, while playing basketball for Classical High School, I fell and broke both my wrists. The left one in 13 places and just a hairline fracture of the right wrist. Think about that, a high school sophomore walking the school halls sporting two casts, it wasn’t easy, even for a member of the basketball team. The diagnosis was for four weeks for the right wrist and six weeks for the more damaged left wrist.

The week the right cast was supposed to be removed it ended up snowing and my mom wouldn’t chance driving in the storm to my scheduled visit, opting to wait the six weeks for both. I was not amused but took it. Two weeks later, it snowed again and I was denied but was assured they would come off in just one more week. That day, one week later, was February 6, 1978.

We went to school like any other day, even though we were warned a snowstorm was on the way. My only concern was that the casts were coming off and I didn’t care about any stupid snowstorm. However, by midday when they announced they’d be sending us home early, I had a distinct feeling my mom wouldn’t be taking me to get the casts off.

The bus ride from Classical down into Kennedy Plaza wasn’t so bad, it was snowing and accumulating at 1 pm but it wasn’t that bad. Getting a bus in the old bus tunnel that is now the Bank of America Skating Center wasn’t so bad either, we were covered while waiting for the 57 Smith bus. Traffic was backing up though, people were leaving work, school buses were on the streets and the ride from Kennedy Plaza, just to the top of Smith Hill at the State House was an adventure that took nearly an hour.

From there, a ride that normally took 10 minutes tops, took another hour. And we never even reached our bus stop, we bailed out two bus stops before ours and walked the quarter-mile home. That took about 15 minutes and we were soaked when we walked in the door. My first words were, “Let’s go!” To which my mom replied, “We’re not going anywhere,”explaining quite logically that the doctor’s office called an cancelled the rest of the day and no one was traveling anywhere right now, it was just snowing too hard.

Blinded by a combination of testosterone, a little bit of an Irish temper and the fact I’d already been denied twice, I screamed that I’d had enough and I was going to take matters into my own hands. My mother obviously thought I was bluffing until she saw me reach into the draw where she kept her cooking utensils. When I turned, Ginsu in hand, my mom got angry, my sisters were a combination of amused and a little scared and I probably looked like a wild-eyed heroin addict in need of a fix.

It wasn’t easy, but true to its advertising, the Ginsu worked like a charm and sliced off that right cast with only about half as much force as I could muster with a cast hindering me. As I looked at the skinny, pale wrist before me, I could vaguely hear my mom screaming at me that I was in big trouble and looked up to see my sisters staring at me in a combination of horror and awe and it was then I realized I probably acted a little crazily. That’s when I backed down and decided not to cut off the second cast on the more badly injured left wrist.

My mom, always the practical one, overcame her anger and offered up a simple solution, stating, “Good, now you can go out and start shoveling.”