Dixon's Forum Posts from Dixon

Seeing eye-to-eye with this caring tall man lawyer hopeful candidate, I decided to give him a little boost, and recommended some readings to help him understand younger voters’ life experiences and viewpoints, and ways a modern candidate might better appeal to us.

Then I offered him an easily-enactable, inexpensive, cost-effective, great idea for a sweeping reform that would strengthen the schools significantly and immediately.    He leaned in to listen; I started this story:

I just moved to town here a few months ago.  Mountains of stuff, rickety little trailer, multiple trips, long dark byways, dreaming while driving inspiring my most 🤜🏻 moving song <“It’s true”>.    . . .    But, that’s another story.

My first job around here was Temporary Replacement District School Carpenter, part-time, for eleven dollars an hour, because the real School Carpenter was out with a back injury, and working nighttimes, because of <ahem> ✌🏻“office politics”✌🏻.    . . .    But, that’s another story.

It was a great job, nice workshop, light workload, self-supervised.    They’d leave my lists, I’d check ’em off, then clock out and stay in their workshop to play and tinker my nights away.

Secretly, I handcrafted my masterpiece invention there:   a device to let our injured violinists play again!  And, play prettier than before!    . . .    But, that’s another story.

So that school hired me, me, just blown in from out-of-state, hired me on the spot, asking nobody anywhere if I really am carpenter, completely incurious whatever else in light or dark I might be, and turned me loose with the keys!    Dozens of keys to everything — Kindergartens, high school, offices, kitchens, vehicles, closets, auditoriums, classrooms, gymnasiums, lockers.

I felt so lucky to have that job, to play all I want in their wonderful workshop, but horrified, outraged they were so heedless with the hiring, so careless with the keys.    Bad enough if they put these keys in the wrong hands; but what about the kids!    What nightmares could twisted minds conjure?    What time-bombs, even now, stalked the halls?

Why did they trust me so blindly, how knew they my hands weren’t the wrong?    Because I’m so cute?    Or maybe they’re just desperate.

I really was cute . . . once.   . . .    But, that’s another story.

So I pondered — how could I, obscure and powerless, have immense and indifferent authority, take more care of our children in the future?

See what just happened right there?    I got to tell TWO stories tonight!    . . .    And that’s another story!

So I told this hopeful new candidate the great idea was to sweep away and hire no more the villainous miscreants we don’t want around our kids, our teachers either, really — background check, vigorously, everyone.    He agreed it’s a good idea and said he’d look into it.

Then he signed my comic strip, a satirical commentary on politics and culture, cartoon lampooning in lyrical time.    There’s always plenty of first-rate fodder for that, with all those functionaries 🦶🏻 out to out-fiddle our frogs!

Rejected by the cartooning syndicates, I’d pass it around at shows with a survey inside, to drum up support, three comicly-bannered signup sheets titled, “Yes it’s Good, Publish”; and, “No it Stinks, Don’t”; and “Who Cares” — with commentary columns and demographics and everything.

Got a few signatures, mostly for “Yes”, and his comment said, <ahem> “A poet is a conscience of a society.    Continue to be that conscience.    Your voice is needed in our state.”

Wow — this thoughtful future Governor calling me an actual poet, actually encouraging more, in writing!  Writing it in a free-form poem!    Me and the Governor, poeting kindred spirits, imagine that!    🦶🏻    I sure did.

. . .

I never ever really was a real poet, though.  But when a newfound talent for versifying told me I was, I believed it, strongly enough to fool myself and others, intelligent others — educators, entrepreneurs, professionals, scholars, baristas, even a poetry professor!    And all their favorable feedback fed more and more fantastical foolery, spinning and tilting me over the edge down quixotical garden paths.

Never 🦶🏻 fooled my brother, though; he knows I’m just a harmless nutcase.    Plus, he’s a Master of Fine Arts.  And a doctor now, too.   . . .    But, that’s another story.

An electrician in the crowd voted “No, it Stinks, Don’t”, scrawling broadly down the page:

<ahem>

See?  Evokable by everyone.

Syndicates still ignored it, their loss, and mine.    . . .    But, that’s another story.