Inheriting an Inventor's Legacy

My great great great grandfather, Leonard Palmer, invented Leap Frog. At one point no one played leap frog, then along came Leonard. He was an innovator. I'm told Leonard invented Leap Frog at the age of four. He was also co-writer of Patty Cake. He came up with that when he was nine. From that point on there were a lot of expectations placed on Leonard to always be great. The pressure was too much and he developed a debilitating addiction to Clark Stanley's Snake Oil Lineament.

Leonard spent ages 10 to 21 in state mental institutions. It was during this emotional incarceration that he invented Radium. Upon release Leonard sold the Radium formula to Andrew Carnegie, which lead to A. Carnegie's Fine Products brand radium-based baby food.

My parents wanted me to follow in Leonard's footsteps. They enrolled me in Bickman's Pre-School for Advanced Toddlers. Bickman's felt that if you relentlessly poked and prodded a youngster's proclivity for making things up, he would actually come up with something useful. I came up with Bayer's Children's Aspirin as a result of the incessant headaches I developed while enrolled at Bickman's.

Do the Hip Shake Baby

It's been a pretty busy ghosty week. Today on my morning lake walk I came upon the ghost of Slim Harpo. Sometimes I wonder if they come looking for me or I for them. I've been singing Shake Your Hips all week.

I said, "Slim, now that you're dead, do you still sing your songs?"

Slim said, "I don't sing them, but I think them. When you're dead, your thoughts are at the volume of spoken words."

I said, "Sometimes I wonder if I'm dead because I have that experience now."

Slim said, "Well, let me ask you this, why do you think is it that you keep seeing ghosts on a regular basis?"

I said, "Oh."

Slim started to sing and I joined in:

What you don't know
don't be afraid
just listen to me
and do what I say
Don't move your head
don't move your hands
don't move your lips
just shake your hips

Humbling

I woke up at 4 am and saw the ghost of Miguel de Cervantes standing at the foot of my bed looking back at me.

Ghosts don't sleep. I think when you're dead you're so relaxed that there's no need for rest. The ease of the ghosts comes from knowing you can't be killed. As humans we're constantly over concerned that every little thing could kill us. That squirrel could chew out my neck. What if I swallowed my spoon? The sun could hiccup and reduce me to ash.

The wide awake Cervantes said, "I'm no beauty to the beholder's eye, though the moon light renders me palatable."

I love wit. I'm certain it's better than Vitamin C.

I said, "Mount Parnassus once uttered to the Earth, 'I hope I'm not crushing your leg.'"

Cervantes had no reaction. It's so easy to feel like an idiot around your icons.

A Matter of Time

The ghost of Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt, the wife of President Teddy Roosevelt, came by to visit this morning. She was deeply sad.

I said, "What's wrong Alice?"

Alice said, "I don't know. I guess, I've never gotten over my death at the age of 22."

I said, "When was that?"

Alice said, "1887."

I said, "That happened so long ago that it never actually happened."

I went online and showed her the Ortega Documents. This is research that was done at Harvard University by Dr's. Melanie Ortega and Nathan Gist in 2004. This hypothesized and proved that an event changes over time. A person experiences an event, and the normal wear and tear of the mind over time alters the memory of the event. But the person experiences the changed memory as the original event. It's like a painting that upon completion is taken outdoors and is hung up on a tree by the painter. Rain, the sun, squirrels, snow, accumulated dust and the normal deterioration of the paint and canvass render the painting unrecognizable from the day it was created. But the painter walks past the painting experiencing her art as "this is how it looked when I originally painted it."

Alice said, "Strangely, I feel better."

I said, "And you look great!"

Alice smiled. I took her photo with my special ghost camera.

Reunited

I lost touch with the times and couldn't get back in sync. As usual I got in my time machine. I set the destination dial for 1,000,000 years ago and traveled back. I got out and took in the vast treeless region. I adored the openness, the lack of buildings and people.

Everyone I knew was dead because they had yet to be born. It was funny that I could think of them when they hadn't been created. I felt like an author.

I looked down and saw a glob of slime. I was meeting my ancestors. I remember my physics teacher in high school saying, "Everything has simple beginnings." Then I thought, "With development comes complexity comes difficulty." I wondered if it was possible to have the simple awareness of the glob and be a standing human.

Then I noticed the slime rubbing affectionately against my foot. I picked up the slime and hugged it. The glob vibrated. I cried.

I got back in the time machine with the slime in my jacket pocket and came back to this now. The primordial slime and I have been inseparable since. Last night we saw Secretariat together. We loved it even though we knew ahead of time that Secretariat would win the Triple Crown.

Going With the Flow

Last night I was playing blackjack at the Golden Horseshoe Casino in Council Bluff, Iowa. I was in the hole about $8000. I didn't want to stop and then have to go out to the car and deal with my dog, Rexy. He can smell when I lose and won't stop barking at me. I can't believe I thought that having a smart dog that can speak English would be a good thing!

I was down to my last dollar. I'd already prayed to God with the promise that if I won big I would stop gambling (not including the lottery, and not including gambling because I'm okay with God being upset at me). I figured, "What, the hello!" I went to the slots area and put the dollar in a Wheel of Fortune machine. I lost.

I took the dour walk to my car. Rexy saw me and started barking like crazy. I went the other way till I got to the freeway and hitchhiked. I got picked up by a trucker heading to Canada.

The trucker said, "Can I tell you about Jesus?"

I said, "No, I'm Jewish."

The trucker said, "Christ was a Jew."

I said, "Sure."

Remembering My Birth Day

When I was born I was five years old. The doctor had never seen anything like it before. I came out speaking. I said, "Hi, I'm Brooks." I must have learned from listening through the womb.

My parents were a little upset because they had spent a lot of money on the crib and diapers. But I think they were also a little relieved at not having to raise an infant.

I remember my mom smoking during the delivery. Doctors recommended it because it helped relieve the labor tensions. I remember it was one of those menthol cigarettes. Those were considered extra healthy.

Falling to Pieces

Things were difficult. I would play my guitar and the neck would break. I wasn't even playing the guitar that hard. The thing is, you can't nail a neck back on a guitar. You need a new one.

Within two months I went through 33 guitars. I'd used up my savings and maxed out my credit cards. I wanted another guitar, but had no way of acquiring one. I was pretty down in the mouth.

Then I read a fortune cookie which said, "Everything around you will crumble. But that's what things do. It's a crumbly world."

I felt better. I left the restaurant and broke into millions of pieces onto the sidewalk. Each part of me looked back at the other parts. I thought, "I'm a kaleidoscope!!"

You Decide

I went back to waiting tables. I got a job at Ulner's Cafe. It's one of the new You Decide restaurants. There's no menu. I come to your table and ask, "What do you want?"

Last Friday a guy said, "I want the baby food my mom served me when I was two." I left and drove west for a half hour till I got to the house my customer grew up in. I got out the portable time machine that the restaurant lent me. I traveled back to the morning of 37 years ago. My customer's mom was spoon feeding him Gerber's apple preserves. I excused myself and grabbed the spoon and jar of preserves and then traveled back to last Friday. I drove back to the restaurant and spoon fed the baby food to my client. He wept like a baby.

Bowditch!

The ghost of Nathaniel Bowditch came by last night. He had one hand on his heart and held the other hand aloft and declared, "I'm Nathaniel Bowditch!" People from long ago have a strong presentational way of talking. I think it's because they didn't have TV or the internet and so they felt good about themselves.

I said, "I'm sorry, but I don't know who you are."

Nathaniel Bowditch said, "Oh, that's okay. Few do. In the early 1800's I was intensely interested in the mathematics involved in celestial navigation. I used to set sail in the middle of the night with nothing but my protractor. I used my discoveries to write 'The American Practical Navigator' which became a bestseller and later was developed into a play that made a star of a young John Wilkes Booth."

The Natural Flow of Events - Part One

Yesterday afternoon I found out that my book, "A Life Full of Ghosts: My Encounters With the Once Living But Still Somehow Living" was being published by Random House.

The ghost of Frances Hodgson Burnett came by to congratulate me. She's the author of "Little Lord Fauntleroy". Frances said, "Men are so shallow...but what's adverse makes them beneficial authors because they can so easily pull from life's muck." I like how the really good authors make books out of sentences.

The Natural Flow of Events - Part Two

Last night Jesus appeared floating over my bed. He was illuminated from within. I mostly wondered how he was able to do that. I thought maybe he used glow cream. That would make sense since he wanted me to see him. Otherwise he would have put in all that effort and gone unnoticed.

Jesus said, "Seriously, the 'how' is unimportant. I've come to bring you a message."

I said, "Could you just sit on my bed? Looking at you like this is making me dizzy."

Jesus said, "I'm sorry. For some reason I can only appear like this. It's not easy for me either."

I said, "Okay, well, what's so important?"

Jesus said, "...Um, that's weird. I forgot...I'm very sorry."

I wanted to get angry at him, but then, he's Jesus, so I said, "That's okay. It's nice that you came by."

The Natural Flow of Events - Part Three

I woke up in tears. I didn't know why. The thing is I destroyed my pillow. It was drenched and smelled like stuff left in the washer overnight. The crying helped me get over that.

Digging In the Dirt

I get bored easily. Last night I felt so antsy that I dug a hole in my living room floor. Initially it was difficult because the floor is made of concrete. I went through three shovels. I finally felt good about the bulk shovel purchase I made at Costco last year.

I soon got to the dirt and things went fast. Within hours I figured I was at the center of the Earth. There were lava and dinosaurs everywhere. I was so angry at myself for not bringing my camera phone.

Empathy

I went out this morning to catch the bus to work. As I waited at the bus stop, a deer came up next to me. I didn't say anything at first. Not because it was a special moment and I was afraid to disturb it, but I'm socially awkward. Spoken words often betray me.

The deer said, "Dammit, I wish I'd gotten here earlier. I'm running late. How much longer till the bus comes?"

I said, "Um, I don't know, I hope, well...you know...soon."

A few minutes went by. The deer said, "This is bullshit. I'm walking." The deer went on its way.

The bus came a few minutes later. I got on the bus. We passed the deer. The deer seemed really angry and yelled something at the bus.

I felt badly for the deer. I think I'm too sensitive.