Jay Wrote

The Humorist Revealed; Betty Walker Wilkinson Don't it always seem to go?  Don't know what you got till it's gone...  Big Yellow Taxi, Joni Mitchell   When you are growing up, likely nothing your mom or dad said or did was funny. Unintentionally ridiculous perhaps. But the muscles that roll your eyeballs were hur by those attempts at humor - especially in the awful context of your mom as a substitute teacher. And those family stories - weird, yes. Funny, no. Ah, the deafness of youth! I didn’t recognize and appreciate my mom’s humor until far too late. When she died, I found letters she wrote to us in the 70s, sometimes faint 3rd level carbon copies, missives sent to us young men and one young woman eventually, mostly off on their own, scattered across the country. Did she talk like this to us before I headed off to college? Probably, but did I hear it? Nope. And hmmm, I got very different inheritances from my mother and my father. I now re...

of what sacrifice Should you grasp that desiccated rib of basketry  from some high and rocky shelf or commodify a shard with camera; take too the stony yellow dust  that abrades emerging gasps at birth and colors each breath of prayer.  In time’s fading light  scuff another’s memory or echo  disperse it like spores from a puffball; your steps like stitches  that pierce and hold and sunder. A rock.  A village. A ruin. JW (bouncing off Gertrude Stein) LET US DESCRIBE.         Let us describe how they went. It was a very windy night and the road although in excellent condition and extremely well graded has many turnings and although the curves are not sharp the rise is considerable. It was a very windy night and some of the larger vehicles found it more prudent not to venture. In consequence some of those who had planned to go were unable to do so. Many others did go and there w...