Man with a dog

In the little house behind a brewery, in the little, tiny, narrow street full of little packed up little houses, lived one veteran. Why veteran? He was to young for regular retirement. Where did he served? When I will say he was a military. I will be cross with military folks, when I will say he was an ex-policeman, I will get it from policemen ...He hold himself straight, so he was somebody, and he was the veteran, because he served his time, so he could retire. And do not interrupt me, because it is not so important; important is, that he have had a beautiful dog. A German Shepherd. It might be a sheep dog. No, he wasn't a sheep dog. How do you know it? They have curly fur. Are you making it up? No. How they look after sheep all the time, their fur began to be curly, too. First a tail gets curly, then legs and a chest, and whole dog is nice and curly. Of course, the sheep like such curly dog and treat him as their own kind. So, it wasn't the sheep dog. What was his name? Rex. What was the name of the man? I do not know. He didn't tell me. And this man and his dog were walking outside all the time. Rex was skinny as shingle and smart like dickens. Are the dickens smart? I do not know. It's only such saying. It's English word, you know. I would like to say something else: a town was full of grey squirrels. Squirrels were everywhere. They were begging at people's back door and people were buying peanuts for them and the squirrels were sitting on their hind legs, holding a peanut with their front legs and eating it. They were cute. The squirrels walked electric wires from one house to the house across and above the street, they were crossing the road, and the cars were stepping on the brakes. "My Gosh, I do not want to run over the squirrel, I would have to think about it whole day at work, and I would feel like a murderer." Suddenly there were not so many squirrels around. They didn't jump from the tree to another tree and didn't cross the street. First they disappeared from the street where the veteran lived. Then he began to walk his dog father and farther and everywhere they went the squirrels began to disappear. "There are not many squirrels this summer. All of them disappeared." People were saying. Then the man and his dog showed up at the cemetery and all squirrels which lived there were gone. The man began to show up at children's playground. One little girl said: "The dog was trying to climb a tree after the squirrel." "Did he succeed?" "No. He was only jumping at the tree, and the squirrel was high on the branch, and then she jumped to another tree and another tree, and she was gone." The squirrels also disappeared from the playground and adjacent areas. "There are not many squirrels this summer." People were saying. Then the man with his dog has showed up in the street behind a church. The squirrels also vanished there. A boy, about ten years old, who lived in that street, he was such a fearless kid, said: "The man feeds squirrels to the dog." "Aren't you making it up? Did you actually see the dog to eat the squirrels?" No, but the dog has such hungry eyes, when he sees the squirrel." "Phleese, tell me, how he eats them: with a tail, hair, bones and all?" "I do not know. I think so. He is not going to skin the squirrel first." "You must be kidding. Lets follow them." The boys went next day to look for the man and his dog. They were gone and the squirrels were gone as well. Why the man was doing this? He has to train his dog first. Maybe he didn't have enough money to feed himself and the dog and he loved his dog very much ... How many squirrels a day can such a German Shepherd eats daily, what do you think?" "Two, or three ..." Think, he eats three meals a day. I would say three." "The dog is so skinny ... He doesn't catch the squirrel each time and also has to be careful, so will not get caught." "He trained his dog well." "Yeah. The dog is well trained. They understand each other well: the man and his dog." "Do you think the dog catches the squirrels also for his master?" "Maybe." "Does he also eats squirrels?" "Yeah. He skins them, sells the pellets, and he cooks a stew for himself. He also shares his meal with the dog." "No, the dog already ate his share." "Listen, isn't it against the law to catch the squirrels?" "No." "Lets post a sign." "We don't want you and your dog in our street." They hanged the sign on the post and people signed it. The man and his dog didn't show up anymore. The squirrels returned back to the street after some time. Copyright (c) Marie Neumann Written in Czech 2010. English translation 2/3/2013 Pottsville

Peeing

I was standing in the line for the tickets to the swimming pool. In front of me was a young mother with about four years old boy. Little boy pulled impatiently his mother's hand. "Mom, hurry, I have to go to pee into the pool." Mom answered: "Little boy, pee into the swimming pool is no, no. First we are going to use the toilet and then we will go for swim." They went to the changing room, and because the boy was little, he could join his mother. There he peed into the toilet. Then they went swimming. Little boy, of course, had to tell to other boys about his adventure with the toilet. And of course, the other boys have had to follow what the little boy have done, except they were not aloud into women's changing area. What they did in the men's room I don't know, but they were proud about themselves. Of course, little girls, soon found out about boys' secret activities by very innocent eavesdropping. "Big deal", they said. "What they can do, we can do by sitting." And they did what they said. From that time nobody pied into the swimming pool anymore. The boys and the girls tossed the ball, dived, they did the handstand with the legs sticking out of the pool, and they learned how to swim. It didn't matter when they had a little drink of water here, or there. Copyright (c) Marie Neumann Pottsville, about 2010

Teenagers

In these days people complain how much teenagers eat. I remember my son. We joked he will eat us out of the house. In one year he grew eight inches. "He isn't so bad. It's girls." Time to build bones, time to grow muscles. Eat. We have to eat. Copyright (c) Marie Neumann Pottsville, 11/11/2010

Art of shopping

Til' today I was thinking, that shopping is about spending money, killing time, and about getting "five minutes pleasure", when you buy something, what you like, usually clothes, perfume, jewelry, or a nice scarf. I go shopping because I have to, usually with a list of items we need: groceries, detergents and cleaning needs. Of course I forget shopping list at home and have to buy from memory, and I am not talking about coupons, which are still resting in a box on the top of a fridge..\br Today I went to buy a chair for a desk. My idea was to get to the store, grab the chair, pay for it, and get out. Wrong! I found six bars of a soap on a dollar table, and not a single chair suitable for the desk. The soap was for regular price. Somebody just put it there.\br My friend goes shopping every day. She comes home with practical things like economical and highly efficient vacuum cleaner, energy saving bulbs, and the lamps spreading nice, soft circle of a light in the evenings. She knows how to systematically build inviting, cozy, and comfortable home. I don't. I am rumbling about spending money. She just wants to be comfortable.\br My room is a mess. Papers, which should be discarded a long time ago, are lying everywhere, and of course, collect dust. Nobody wants to come to sit in my room. It is not inviting. I create chaos. She builds home.\br Copyright (c) Marie Neumann Pottsville, PA (not that in Texas). 11/9/2012

Celebration

I met them at the meeting: grandmother, mother and daughter with her own children. There were four generations of women coming. Mother was ill and still coming to help others. Mother was dying. There was a funeral. I didn't come, because I overlooked a notice in the paper. I didn't go, because I hate funerals and forgot to come for the living. After the funeral I asked: how was the funeral? "We celebrated her life." Copyright (c) Marie Neumann Pottsville, 11/1/2012

A letter

You wrote me you will wait till' Spring time and then you will die. I hope you will change your mind and wait to see your new grandchild, and be happy, so you forget about dying. In the case you will not change your mind and you will go to Heaven, I hope you will meet Jack's wife, and you will become close friends. How? There will be not a language barrier. Language is such in-perfect tool for communication anyway. You will teach her how to knit and crochet. Your hands, forearms and elbows will not hurt, so you could do, what you liked to do. There you two will be sitting, happily clicking needles, creating new fashions, taking wool from the white clouds, and dressing all little angels. After a while you two become tired of white color, so you will also use gray clouds, pink and yellow from the sunset and sunrise. You don't like to use wool from dark, angry clouds, It is to wet anyway. All little angels will be happy, because they could sit on the clouds and blend with them, so nobody will see them. It is one of the rules: not to be seen. After another while you will begin to dream about luscious green of the grass, deep red of the roses, rich yellow buttercups, and you will begin to ask: what happens to the rainbow after it fades? Nothing disappears without traces. May we use the colors from the rainbows to dress little angels? Your activity is pleasant to my eyes, you are not selfish, and you think about others and not about yourself. Yes, you may. So Rosalie and Joan are knitting sweaters, hats, socks, scarves and mittens in rainbow colors, and soon all Heaven is as colorful as Earth. They look like clowns, some conservative complains. This suppose to be Heaven and not Earth. Never mind, is an answer. Clowns bring laughter. Did you have enough of it, when you lived on Earth? Rosalie and Joan also invented cases for the angels' wings in the colors of butterflies and rainbows. When the first putties appeared in the sky fluttering their wings, they heard a hearty, belly laughter: I invented everything, but cases for the wings of my little angels. I am silly. I wish you happy life in Heaven, when I should wish you long and happy live on Earth. Your little sister. Copyright (c) Marie Neumann Pottsville, 9/22/2012

The best where to ride a bike is ...

Of course first what comes into my mind is where not to ride a bike ... Not to learn to ride on your older brother's bike, when one foot is on the pedal and second leg has to be under the stick. Riding the bike in the circles where my brother was a center; and then he lets go ... Nice, flat surface without rocks is fine. Also to learn how to steer is very helpful. With such a skill you can ride the bike practically anywhere, two wheels economically placed behind each other, can fit. There was an end of a flat surface and it was downhill. It is helpful to ride the bike, when you know how to step on the brake, and where is the brake located. Then you can ride the bike practically anywhere, when you feel it is important to interrupt a motion. Speeding I wasn't able to locate the brakes and ended up inside of half demolished house. It was a better option, because if I knew how to steer I could end up under a car on the busy street under the hill. A lesson: to avoid busy streets, half demolished houses and you can ride your bike practically everywhere. Copyright (c) Marie Neumann POW! 9/8/2012