Wilson

 Halftime

Wilson from the South Pacific

Was called upon to tell of his 

Long ordeal drifting

In the ocean

The kids were not interested

Boring!

Soon Wilson they were 

Kicking.

Suwannee Maiden

 Siren of Suwannee

Myriads of eyes has she

Alluring with her palmetto lashes

Her makeup never clashing

Oh that maiden Suwannee!

The Tour de Five Points

 The Tour de Five Points 

Round and round and round the pint sized peloton spun around and around and around la Grande Boucle  Little Merckx, Indurain, Basso,Pantani, Cavendish, Evans,Hinault,Anquetil,Chippolini,Coppi and Ullrich  Only one shall don le maillot jaune  The bell has rung as eleven are on the rivets  Round about Round about round about they sweep  Rotating furiously each takes a pull  A jump and one hammers a gap  It's IL Pirata pursued by the Cannibal   When suddenly, from above a hand reaches down Recess over! teacher yells, as little Merckx,Indurain,Basso,Pantani,Cavendish,Evans,Hinault,Anquetil,Chippolini,Coppi and Ullrich sprint for the feeding station.

Hidden Williston

 Hidden Williston

Williston has been dear to me and my family since 1967 when we rolled in to the Methodist parsonage on Noble Avenue from Kentucky.  Though my fathers pastorate came to an end in 1977 and we moved to Lake City, our connection to Williston never did. 

Mrs Valerie Blackburn, who lived in the trailer court where Hardee’s now stands, beside the large Mother Wilson’s two story, now gone, across the street from the white wood parsonage, now moved out toward Ocala, told me every time I visited her and her pet Mockingbird, that she was praying I would marry a Williston girl. I always laughed it off, seeing my prospects dimming with each passing year and old girlfriends marrying others. 

But in the hidden realm, the day I met my niece Jessica’s nurse at Shand’s of UF, my sister saying, “you just got to meet her! She’s a Williston girl!” The minute we met, my thoughts immediately went to Mrs Blackburn. That was around 1986. In 1988 I wish Mrs Blackburn was still alive to see me marrying the Mayors daughter in Whitehurst Chapel by my father. 

In 2001 my father sold his place in Crawfordville and moved back to Williston to the Chiropractor Lipscombs place near Blue Grotto on 27 across from the Catholic Church. We continued to return to Williston, sadly in March of 2011 where we buried my father at the top entrance of Orange Hill, where years prior, he had purchased several lots, then all alone beside Pappy and the beloved Whitehurst family across the street. 

In 0ctober of 2017 we sadly returned to lay beside my father the best pastors wife Williston ever knew, my mother. 

And so we continue to return. We continue to note the hidden. The KFC building where my sister had her first job, the empty hospital where Melanie started out as a nurse with the great doctors McCoy, Dailey, Reddy and Martin, where I later worked in maintenance and was friends with my future father in law, the empty Holiday Inn lot where we’d go swimming, the hawk in the tree by the abandoned school for sale where I graduated in ‘73 and my mother taught, the large oak tree that fell that was once beside my bedroom window, where we placed the worms for sale sign, the linear park where once the Seaboard train stopped traffic. We see the hidden. We see Orange Hill expanding over toward Joe Smiths. We hear Mockingbirds and thank the Valeries for all the prayers.  We ride down the hill and pause way too often and say hello to friends and loved ones.

Marion gets an A

 Cormorants and moon

Watertown 

Marion and I were poised in waiting for the circling cormorants to pass near the rising moon. We saw them nearing and shot a sequence, getting practically the identical scene. Marion my student is getting quite good. I gave him an A tonight.

Moon trap

 Moon trap

Lured into a faux circling of the moon

the creature fell for the Luna ruse

Still waters shimmering doom

Another in a moon trap, it’s life to lose.

Hey piddle piddle

 Piddle

My projects would take half as long if one, I wouldn’t have to continually walk across the yard for the tool I need and should of had and two, if I didn’t have to scrounge and piddle for the right screws or nails. Since we no longer have the convenient Wilsons Ace Hardware, I loathe a long trip to Lowes. Fortunately I have a hundred years of accumulation to pick through. 

What do others do not so fortunate? Long trip!

Porter Cable

Oh fuuuuudge 

Yard work requires a much, much stronger disposition that I possess. I don’t know what causes the syrup kettle I’m trying to move to roll on my toe, I don’t know why I’m wearing clogs, I don’t know why drills strip and screws are star bits, I don’t know why I saw the power cord off, I don’t know why random things snag me, but it happens. 

One good nostalgic moment. After I sawed the power cord, I went and found my dads old Porter Cable circular saw. It cut just as smooth as when I was a little boy.

Why beautiful

 Think on these things

Before we apply our

Beautiful and move on

Think for a moment

Why beautiful?

Beautiful implies a standard.

A judgement. A choice.

A perception 

A feeling

Whence? 

Why beautiful?

Who gave this ability to

Know beauty from what?

Why, not beautiful?

Appreciate your ability

to apply beautiful. 

Don’t take it lightly.

Mark by John

 If Mark were a poet perhaps his gospel would have went thus. The title taken from the poet William Blake. Events in order of occurrence. Isaac Watts was grand at setting scripture to poetry.

Basketball John

 Basketball John

John Clare Stokes

It was probably instilled in the few months I lived in Vicco, Kentucky after being born in January of 1955 during basketball season before moving to Sopchoppy, Florida in June. It wasn’t a particularly great season by Kentucky standards for Adolph Rupp’s Wildcats, finishing 20-6 and second in the SEC behind Alabama. 

But that’s not the point. Point is, it rubbed into me unknowingly. It dwelt there when we moved to Sopchoppy and the Yellow Jackets in the old native rock gym that is now a landmark. Though I wanted to be Walt Dickson, the all-conference running back, there was also inside, Walt the basketball player.

When we moved to Monticello in my third grade year, I do not know if I asked my father, or if he too had the passion, having been invited by Adolph Rupp to say the prayer for the boys before a game, but he erected a basketball backboard and goal with swoosh net behind the new parsonage. Though I took second in punt, pass and kick and wanted to paint the Redskin helmet I won green, after Green Bay, I began to spend most of my time shooting and less time punt,pass and kicking. I finally got my first opportunity to get on a real court in a real game when the 4th grade A boys took on the 4th grade B team during halftime of a Tiger basketball game. My best friend Marc Bishop, the superintendent’s son and I led the B squad against the talented Butch and Bobby Plaines twins  of the A team. The game was frenetic, in the end we lost 7to5. I was high scorer with 3, making my first free throw. Marc had 2. 

That year we moved to Wilmore, Kentucky where my father and mother attended Asbury College. Daddy was to be the alumni director under ZT Johnson, the President and life long family friend.

It was here, as a Cub, with my two new best friends, Stuart and Steve Smith, whose dad was a science professor and coach, we had free reign of the Asbury gym. It was here, just a few miles from Mecca Lexington, that my Uncles William and Billy, living with us in the apartment out back, took me to my first and only Kentucky basketball game in Memorial Coliseum , where their friend Chuck Wade from their home in Forest, Mississippi beat Louie Dampier and Pat Riley. We got to go down to the State locker room and meet Chuck, still living in Forest. #My Uncle William hoped it would cement me a State fan. It only solidified my blue colors. 

In 1967 we moved back to Florida after two years, to Williston. Those first years in 7th to 9th grade, the passion was at a zenith. Orville Wheeler, my coach, being equally passionate, from Jerry West Virginia, was inspiring and encouraging. For a white boy, the future was bright. Then something happened. The Mighty White Red Devils played an exhibition game with East Williston, then all black, a year before segregation. I should have redirected  the passion playing on another field, but I was color blind. 

Like my days as a sprinter came to an end, taking up the hurdles, I should have seen my days as a basketball player ending. As all my white friends one by one quit, I ended up the only white player. Where I was once a shooting guard, I was now a point guard like the current Reed Sheppard who could get the ball up court past any press, only to pass it off. We never won many games. The team was too concerned with scoring stats. I was Mr Defense. 

Once a friend of my mother, trying to impress her, said, “I just love to watch your son play, now what number is he?”

My fondest years of basketball came from playing on our all white Masonic Demolay team where we were state runner ups. Likewise the many nights playing pickup games in the Williston gym with the great Kentucky meatcutter Bill Boyd, my former JV coach the great Dean Chesser, Truby English and other former players. In my senior year, I gave up track and football, which I loved, to concentrate on basketball. Even though I got the Mr Basketball award at graduation, on hindsight, the day I saw that East Williston team with Wilson James dunking and giving meaning to white boys can’t jump, I too should have taken a enjoy football and track too attitude, for it was the end of the line for a lifetime. That’s why tonight I’ll watch UK play Alabama, but I’m not going to worry near as much as once I would have if they lose. 

And to conclude, I still have that goal daddy set up for me in 1964. Times I go out to the shed where it hangs to see if it still glows a hot orange.

Deliverance

 Deliverance 

Suddenly there was this banjo plucking 

She had little knowledge of clawhammer 

She just thought it the sound of nature 

It’s quite wise to know a Scruggs from a Flatt.