Everyone liked Harry. And Harry liked everyone else too. And, truth to tell, Harry had never met a man he didn't like, and so Harry was someone in the true Will Rogers Jr. tradition, in that sense.
Harry had a wife, name of Mary or "Maer" as her friends would say, and Harry was retired, and upon the day of his retirement, a big party was thrown in the company lunchroom, and Harry got a gold watch and a big drawing or sketch of a guy smashing his helmet and smiling. That made Harry laugh. A lot.
It was all over. Harry had made it, and was now entering his Golden Years after 35 years with the Power Company. Harry's pension was there, and was going to be there forever.
And Harry loved his Pension. He loved his Social Security check too, and would always say: "Boy! That is Beautiful!" every time Harry opened the envelope with his social security check in it.
-----------------------------
As a boy, and during the great Depression of the 1930's Harry used to work as a Golf Caddy at the nearby Country Club for the "Rich People".
And, while climbing poles, and risking his life while pursuing a living, and also pursuing the restoration of electricity to innumerable households, Harry would often let his mind wander, and remember those long and dreamy summers from long ago out in the open air, and with his whole life ahead of him, and nothing else to think about but the expanse of the sky, the future, and the stretch of his muscles ...........
It was a happy time.
But stop everybody. I'm snapping my fingers now, and listen up!
Harry, on this day, was really, really surprised to see something he had never seen before or never even thought he would see, ever, when he was on the green of the 18th hole over at the Bethpage Golf course in Bethpage, New York, Long Island (the G in Long Island not silent)
It was a little man, all dressed in green clothes, and no more than two feet high, with his beard stuck at the base of the flag that was stuck in the 18th hole.
As Harry got closer, the little man struggled all the more to unstick his beard, and the little man didn't seem to be very happy at all. In fact, the little man seemed to be very unhappy.
Harry scratched his head, and thought about all those beers from the night before.They weren't very expensive beers, and probably full of cheap chemicals to make them taste better and to give them a kick. But Harry figures it wouldn't kill him to drink them sometimes, and besides, he could save a few bucks that way, and in the end, booze is booze right?
So Harry rubbed his eyes a little, fixed the brim on his faded, Navy Blue NY Yankees cap, and then rubbed his mouth.
But Harry couldn't rub the sight away. There was the little guy again, with red hair, and all dressed in green, an' right in front of him, trying to unstick his extremely thick and long, red beard from the bottom of the hole in the middle of the 18th green.
"Holy Crap!" thought Harry. I must be goin' crazy or somethin!.
"YOU ARE NOT GOING CRAZY!" A voice said from seemingly nowhere.
And the voice even continued:
"I'M STUCK. YOU JERK!"
It took a minute or two, but Harry finally realized that the voice was coming from the little guy with his beard stuck in the hole in the middle if the 18th green, and that the little guy didn't even haff ta' open his mouth or nuttin' for him to talk or anything! And the little fella kept trying to pull his beard outta' that hole, and with no luck, and so Harry, still thinkin he was losin his mind, asked:
"Aw Gee! What can I do for ya, little fella?"
And the little man, whom, it turns out, was an honest to goodness Leprechaun, or "Wee Person" as only the very oldest Irish people are wont to speak of in their dotage, and an extremely irritated and rude Leprechaun at that, (as almost all Leprachauns seem to turn out to be fro whatever reason ), replied:
"Get me out of here you stupid dumb Fuck, and do it now, or I will kick you in the nuts so hard, you will be talking in a higher register for the rest of your miserable days!"
The statement, especially form one so seemingly helpless, really took Harry by surprise, and, genial and affable as Harry's personality was, made Harry start to feel, truth to tell, a little pissed off. ...............
And so now, you, the reader, will have to understand, that by now Harry was sort of -"off ended" or thrown out of his kilter, or, in other words, and as I have indicated, confused.
Also, Harry was not one to let anyone pull a deception, also popularly known as a "fast one" over on him if he could help it. And so, therefore, Harry's Pride was at stake. After all, Harry was a Union Man and a Proud retiree and a beloved senior family member. A solid citizen, in other words, and one of among a selected few upon which the local town Rotarians would also devote, in some sort of a retirement service ceremony, all of 15 minutes of commemoration in the local Union hall thereunto, prior to the speech by the local chief of the constabulatary, such speech being penultimate to the true purpose of the congregation; namely the free, county taxpayer dime paid for, catered, macaroni and cheese, as well as sausage pepper (with warmed Italian garlic bread) on the side meal, with corn or string beans also as optional side dishes, and with a rapt and less attentive an very hungry audience...
Stay with me now---All the fare I wuz talkin about was siting atop the mellow flames of wax-fueled bunson burners, in 12 X 120 inch aluminum, covered serving dishes. (Check for accuracy)
Harry also had the enviable status of being a highly esteemed and proud future or invariably, someday, Obit entry, with the same union, town, county, state or whatever government, and/or civil service insignia atop, for all of a glorious 48 hours in the local newspaper and/or house organ (or longer if his family felt the need to extend the period.)-Such an Obit would possibly accompanied by a photograph from when Harry was a Lion in the true Hemingway sense, and not the old man he turned out to be for the last 20 years of Harry's life, with, in brutal actuality, a horrible jeeering section, rather than as cheering section of a very aloof, though Heritage proud family, very impatient for him to simply croak, for lack of a better phrase.
And so, informed by sheer life experience, if by nothing else, or at least the adumbration of conscious, though somewhat slow thought of such, and so much more, Harry now had to deal in his mind in his senior years, and most every day with the the aforesaid scenario which, unfortunately, (and I say all this with a great sigh) all of us will have to witness the progression of....someday.
And that is the only certain thing that will come out of this story anyway, when all is said and done, and at the very least.
Now, go stretch a bit, and yawn or whatever. I'm going to do so myself.
It is not easy to be off-kilter is it? The contractors are outside th window next door with thieir tape measures, and talking in confident voices about estimates, and such,and so I'm getting distracted.
But still, and so, none of us, and even me the story teller, want to waste our time, and yet, here is Harry, and here is the Leprachaun, and there is not a damn thing we can do about it.
So we have no choice do we? We must watch,. We must observe and judge, and see this tale thru to the bitter end.
And that goes for the even youse non New Yorker people on the other side of the world, who in reality might find it truly distasteful to observe the vulgar goings on among the typical NY Long Islanders, but yet feel compelled to follow in spite of yourselves (with all proprieties intact of course.)
But, to return to the narrative, and if you are still with me, and now a little kid is making noises outside, so my concentration is blown................
what we do around here is reach out the window nd close the window of the neighbor is they are too loud (only kidding, it is not that bad)
TO BE CONTINUED
**6:27 PM EST--Too gone today. Nothing to eat and a few beers. Will take it up tomorrow or during the insomniac hours, which always seem to come now. That might work out better, since I'm sometimes on the sidelines and turning and watching the whole thing or story in my mind anyway. I can't believe what happens next either.
All the above in red is pretty bad. See what a few beers on an empty stomach can do kids? But still, I can rework it and still use some of it. But as I was laying there trying to fall back asleep last night, I came up with the story of the Jittery Kid, so I'm going to write it down now. It's a nice quiet time for it.
Then I will come back to Harry's Putter and then Mrs. Wiedelmeyer, who is getting impatient.
*Sorry about the Poll. I can't seem to get it to work anymore.
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