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Dalton
Roberts |
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Jack Blanchard recently wrote a column about his dreams that convinced me my dreams have shrunk. It was a sobering experience to see how high Jack is still aiming in contrast to the way I have trimmed down my expectations. Jack has been one of my heroes a long time but even my attempts at emulating him have come short. He had a #1 record with a song about a bird called “Tennessee Birdwalk” so I thought my ticket to the top might be a song about an animal. I followed his footsteps by writing “The Gay Dog.” It sold 9 copies in Hixson, 6 in Brainerd, 3 in Tiftonia and 2 in Harrison, and then it started tapering off. Jack’s first ambition is “to hypnotize a chicken and make it walk like a person.” My tiny ambition is to quit walking like a chicken. Have you noticed that the older we get the more we walk like chickens? Rather than flex at the knees, we tend to swing the whole leg. Every morning before I get out of bed, I check under the covers for eggs. He says he craves “to get back to my original weight of 7 pounds and 8 ounces.” I was a big old boy when I first slid into a diaper down in Alabama. Daddy took me to a nearby grocery store to weigh me and some idiot with a camera took my picture. I looked like Mickey Rooney would look right now if he had a total body rash. . Another of Jack’s yearnings is “to twist my neighbors dog into a balloon animal.” I admit I have had violent thoughts about my neighbor’s dogs but to show you what a paragon of peace I have become, I would be perfectly happy if I could just hypnotize them into only barking when burglars are breaking into my house. He desires “to spray WD-40 on a canary’s perch and watch it hang like a bat.” This one did bring out a tiny trace of violence in my mind. I would like to see a hawk swoop down and carry off one of the cats stalking my birds. You know, give them a taste of their own medicine. Another of his dreams is ”to teach a squirrel to yodel.” How I wish Jack had been with me one day. I caught a squirrel I had named “Olympic Squirrel” because of his ability to stand flat-footed and jump seven feet to the top of my feeders. I toted him to the other side of the river and he yodeled all the way. Even though he was Swiss I clearly understood some of his yodels and they were naughty, naughty, naughty. Jack says he longs “to get my elbows pierced so I can wear cuff links with a short sleeved shirt.” To show what a diminished dreamer I have become, I would be happy to see just one sports event where big hairy men aren’t wearing earrings. Call me old-fashioned or out-of-touch or whatever you please, the big lummoxes look about as interesting as a pig flashing a pinky ring to me. Football has become my favorite sport because the helmets hide the silly things. Jack dreams of the time he can “sing ‘My Way’ to an imaginary ferret.” I’m with him on this one. Not for me to sing “My Way” but for Jack to realize this special goal of singing it to a ferret. I love the man’s writing and singing but I wish to be hundreds of miles away. When I played professionally with a band and a sit-in wanted to sing “My Way,” I pulled a knife on him. I abhor all songs that last longer than heart surgery. I do have one big dream left: I want one perfect tomato off my five plants and one tomato sandwich this summer, on white bread loaded with mayonnaise. I may not dream big, but my priorities are right.
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