Saturday, January 24, 2026

Helen Glenn

 

 


My lovely step-sister, Helen Glenn James, as a young tap dancer and in her debut photo.  (room decor by Madeline Hereford,  consulting with "June Cleaver"......)




a more recent photo of Helen Glenn.....Who died, recently, at 83, on Jan. 2, 2026 




a photo of Helen Glenn, more advanced in age,  and a grimmer countenance......with an unknown (to me) friend....or, perhaps, a young "Mammy"....this was Vestavia Hills, after all!  On Route 31....not Route 66....Miss Magnolia....

Friday, January 23, 2026

viewing this early 1960's wide-eyed 'fashion victim' photograph of my Aunt Betty Jo, who died after an active 90 year's of Life.....sporting some really 'Big Hair' and Revlon-Red lipstick........

We had a telephone conversation, days before she kicked the bucket.....as she pointed her phone's camera to random spots in the room, while speaking, rather incoherently...in the last stages of Alzheimer’s Disease... wherein she took her last breaths....kicking pillows...and her phone....to the floor, before expiring.    I remember, more fondly, our family.....dressed in reinactment costumes for the Sesquicentennial Celebration, in 1955..




Monday, January 19, 2026

Listening to a NPR re-broadcast of a rather boring program about 'the importance of regular SLEEP HABITS', yesterday, I decided to hit the sack, early....for me.....9 pm.... Awakening, full of ideas, I drug out a drawing tablet to doodle and scribble for an hour....then, returned to horizontal positioning for another hour, awakening again....alert and 'ready to go'.....However, since I WAS, after all, trying to sleep 'straight through' the night, I felt rather frustrated by my insomnia and turned on the TV to watch Frank Pavich's documentary,  "Jodorowsky's Dune", with H.R. Giger and Michel Seydoux......which led me to search the internet for a hard-bound copy of Jodorowsky's PROPOSAL for filming his Version of DUNE......then, on my phosphoresent watch dial:   3AM!....  so, rather than pursue some alert activity, I listened to some boringly relaxing recording of Tibetan singing bowls and raindrops on the Lake of Melancholia, eventually....returning to slumberland and the usual Lucid Dreaming.......Voila!....now, in the world of dreams, like Little Nemo, I could both 'sleep', 'rest' and have intellectually challenging experiences within cerebral cortex's electrical interchange......The subsequential  DREAM was both uplifting, optimistic and charged with creative energies...and will be discharged, later, in an Update, from last night's shorthand notes on my 'scibblepad'.....I awakened.....bladder shouting for emptying.....thinking, it must be midnight!......but, the see-in-the-dark hands of my watch 'said' 8:30......Hungry, I thought, then, that I should make some dinner........Then, leaving my unlit cave with no windows, emerging into another room, lit by light from a large window....I was confused, wondering why, at 8:30 PM, during Winter, the Sun Was Up!......I was still asleep....and all this was but a Dream......as I stumbled, sleepwalking in the dark, over a pile of DVD's that I'd been sorting, earlier, yesterday, falling into a big plastic storage box, positioned under the hole in my roof, through which rainwater accumulated as it dripped/ran through a ripped out plaster wall.......Was I, still, asleep?   Was this, too, part of my labyrinthin Dream?   Guess 'NOT', as i showered, donned some dry pajamas and slippers and descended the stairs to microwave a coffee cup cheese omelet and pump some expresso........Certainly, now, I am 'actually' awake, and almost ready to write and illustrate last night's Dream....the part not mentioned 'here'....for one of my  Blogs...about Dreaming......Lest all be forgotten as Time separates the instantaneous from the mundane repetions of ordinariness and the interiorized conceits from the far less metaphoric lineup of sequential proceedings between the markers of The Clock..... It's almost 9 AM!   Times-a-wasting and the black India  ink in my 000-tip pen has clogged its point....maybe, a dip into the last drop of expresso will get it 'running' ......... Go without

'Til the need seeps inYou're low, anymoreCollect your novel petals for the stemAnd glowGlowMelt and flowEviscerate your fragile frameAnd spill it out on the ragged floorA thousand different versions of yourself
And if the old guard still offendThey got nothing left on which you dependSo enlist every ounceOf your bright bloodAnd off with their headsJump from the hookYou're not obliged to swallow anything you despiseSee, those unrepenting buzzards want your lifeAnd they got no rightAs sure as you have eyesThey got no right
Just put yourself in my new shoesAnd see that I do what I doBecause the old guard still offend (Their pudgy hearts and shiny hands)They've got nothing left on which we dependSo enlist every ounceOf your bright bloodAnd off with their headsJump from the hookYou're not obliged to swallow anything you despiseThat you despiseThat you despiseThat you despiseThat you despise       ....... James Russell Mercer (The Shins)   

remember the adage: 'the last taste is the last forgotten'.....and that is never parsnip latkes with lox and horseradish creme....is it?

Friday, January 9, 2026

REMEMBERING.....AS I OFTEN DO.....MY FRIEND, CHERYL......WHO, AT 59, PERISHED FROM STAGE IV BREAST CANCER IN 2007......

 




CHERYL HAD STRAIGHT, UNCURLY, HAIR......  AND MENTIONED, MANY TIMES THAT SHE 'WISHED SHE HAD CURLY HAIR'......DURING HER CANCER TREATMENT, CHERYL'S HAIR BEGAN TO 'GROW OUT'.....CURLY.......THE ONLY 'ADVANTAGE' TO THE RADIATION TREATMENT.........I JUST CAME ACROSS THIS 'CURLY CLOWN' PHOTO OF CHERYL.....AND WONDERED..."CURLY ENOUGH FOR YOUR HAIR FANTASY, CHERYL?"   SHE WOULD HAVE LAUGHED, OF COURSE.....SINCE SHE HAD A REMARKABLE SENSE OF HUMOR....UNTIL 'NEAR THE END'.....    

"You can dress 'em up......but.....'that hair!'." .....obviously, Scarlett, I don't give a d@*m!


 
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