First interview for my Awesome Elders book - Helene

Helene and I had lunch in the cafe of Rydal Park nursing home.

Even tho this looks like two dogs' tongues lying on a piece of whole wheat toast, it's really a hot dog with mustard.

Quite good. I did return the pie, tho, telling Janet, the cashier, the crust was underdone.

The help is very mistrustful. Janet insisted I had gotten apple juice instead of water. Helene said when Janet picked up the paper plates from our tables, she friggin counted them!

 View of the room, not to be confused with "Room with a View" by E M Forster, which I readily confess I confused with A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf.

Finally, I agreed with Helene that it's really a depressing place. But for the grace of.....

Ah! Helene got my Halloween postcard. Many did not. My friend Judy got hers. It was stuck fast to the postcard I sent her mom Blanch!

Here I sit on the floor typing into me laptop.

I ask the questions and she answers.

Praps I'll call her chapter: Helene: The Woman of Many Sorrows.

She lost her son, her daughter, her husband, AND her beloved home.

Quick! Think of something happy to write.

All right. Am gonna compose one of my spontaneous poems. Remember it doesn't have to be good.

Oh, this was on my poem "to do list."

PAGE FORTY-NINE

On page 49 of the library book in
my hand, a dutiful librarian
has stamped Upper Moreland
Free Public Library on the bottom, marring
it like my sister Donna once did,
as a child back in Cleveland, with
her orange crayon.

Words cannot describe my
horror. This is a book, the
foundation of education. You
are teaching disrespect, dis-
honor, the power of the
Ugly. Is this why we as a
nation continue to raise
a bevy of haters and liars.
Look at Chris Christie, the
governor of New Jersey.

The man wouldn't know The
Truth if Jesus Christ himself
sat down in his living room
and said, Lie no more or Pur-
gatory awaits you. Too late.
Christie can't discriminate.