The Little Words Mean the Most

Going to Dublin aboard Aer Lingus

  

best giggly

 

I'm not at all above that! in fact that's my height limit

 

best giggly NAME EVER for an airline

 

Simone and I are stuck in middle seats

 

we've been instructed to wear green conspicuously, though St. Patrick's Day is six months beyond

 

the curve of the earth: owls of yellow eyes, blue of poisoned seas

 

better than steerage, the way my grandparents arrived in the United States

 

maybe just shorter

 

they died

 

of the misnamed Spanish flu soon thereafter, attended by nuns, leaving two orphans to be put aboard stranger trains: my dad and a younger brother he never saw again

 

I have hopes

 

limited hopes

 

 

Why your next blog post is the most important blog post in America

 

 

Because you do not support National Asshole, D. Trump. The bully and braggart you always despised. Sucker-punched me in the 3rd grade, as I descended the stairs off a beaming yellow school bus. My D.ump surrogate and I were infatuated with the same girl child. I'm reading David McCullough's mesmerizing account of making the Panama Canal a reality. That canal changed everything on the planet: economies, politics, civilizations, futures.

 

Your next post won't be about crap. Will it?

 

Donald Trump is crap.

 

 

 

 

I don't write. I

 

 

 

 

utter

 

 

 

 

Chapter 16

 

 

The most persuasive thing you could possibly say on your giving page would read something like the following ... if not verbatim, at least as it plays out in the subconscious mind of the donor. In whatever words you choose, that ideal website visitor would hear something like this loud and clear:

 

         Thank you.

 

         You make it possible.

 

         Thank you ... SO, SO MUCH.

 

         This mission depends on you UTTERLY.

 

         And you know, here's a little secret I shouldn't reveal: at board and staff retreats, we always end up talking about YOU, the donor, the true believer, the supporter, the family member.

 

         We talk about how important you are.

 

         We talk about how these special, compassionate, selfless, kind people LIKE YOU make so much possible.

 

         Frankly, we gush. I hope you don't mind.

 

         We gush shamelessly.

 

         Because you joined the fight. You consulted your heart. You felt those crazy "caring" enzymes rise inside you.

 

         You glowed like an incandescent bulb of doing good.

 

         You flared into a star of doing good.

 

         You screamed with righteous purpose at the very moment you made your gift.

       

         So we hope.

 

         Because of people like you, we continue to hope.

If you don't have kids, at least you have Twitter

 

 

"Only word count I abide by is, make every one count." ¶ Jerry C., editor-in-chief, Emerson & Church

"It comes to this," he said.

 

"Good for nothing much. And great at it."

America's Rodin: Marshall M. Fredericks, the museum

Signs in Michigan (spot the planet's biggest Santa Claus school)

 

Journeyman Distillery, 3 Oaks, MI

Marilyn keeps raising her hand to ask questions. Simone mocks her. Double-click any image to spill.