mcradloff Poetry (529)

I remember going down the creek
I was in the back and Dad was in the front of the 12 ft boat
He would set the traps for the muscrats and I would write down the location
R for right side of creek, L for left side of creek
Sometimes I would write something else to identify the special location
75 traps took about eight hours
The next day we would get the muscrats and occasional mink or raccoons
Some would have to be killed with a wooden club
Most were drowned by the trap pulling the animal down and drowning it
Then it was up to 34 muscrats to dry off which I did and Dad would skin
Then we took them to sell in a big white truck and Dad would give me 200 dollars
I used this fur money to buy Christmas presents
This lasted from 1982 to 1986
Each year was about the same amount

I asked my coworker
Where's that guy with the dog?
Oh, remember that s*xual harassment video we had to watch
He was the reason we had to watch it
They fired him because he was trying to get every girl on second shift
I think of that and it makes me feel bad about the place I work
That the climate allows someone to think they can abuse their power
And use their management position as a tool of abuse
It certainly isn't confined to this place
My second boss was promoted after he was facing charges of assulting girls
This was in 1989
40 years ago
So are we progressing on this issue?
Maybe, at least I hope so

The biggest garage sale has to be EBAY
I am waiting for a greatest hits CD by Talking Heads
My last purchase was a greatest hits CD by The Eurythmics
I have gotten tshirts, but most of my purchases have been music
Either CDs, records, and a few tapes
I am going to garage sales in Lancaster, Wisconsin on Saturday
My purchases are usually music or books
I got a boombox I still use to listen to tapes I got for five bucks about 10 years ago
Sometimes I get chocolate chip cookies or lemonade
It's meeting new people and mostly just looking at huge collections of stuff
And of course listening to my music in my car which is my favorite part

You wanna make some quick money
Without all that working, dealing with managers, coworkers and all that crap?
Well, you steal
One way is to get a gun and walk into a bank
And say to the clerk
Give me all your money
Another way is to write a note, hand it to the clerk, on it write
Give me all your money, my buddies is outside with a gun drawn on you
Another way is to get knocked up
Of course this only works if you're a woman
Then you get to go on welfare, and if you're lucky the sucker
You got to knock you up will actually pay you child support
Here's another way, you come from some country like Guatemala
You come into this country and get caught by the border patrol
They put you in an air conditioned building with food and a nice cot
All the free health care paid for by workers with crappy health insurance
These are just a few of the ways millions upon millions have shirked their duty
To be productive citizens and instead become blood sucking maggots
All with the help of our politicians and apathetic public

Every year we get to volunteer on company time
For four hours we get paid to go somewhere else
So this year I went to my old school in Dickeyville, Wisconsin
I went there from 1974 to 1981 from kindergarten to sixth grade
We dug up sod along a drive way to put in black plastic and pebbles
I had a crush on the woman who was now the librarian at this place
It is no longer a school and is a library and office for the police department
I went back to this school when it was still a school in 1991
Then I was taking a college class that required me to observe a teacher
My old teacher Mr. Taylor
Then in 1992 I did my kindergarten teaching there
A child died in a fire the first week I was there on Friday, Janurary 17
I went there once a long time ago to look at the library
But for the most part I haven't been to this school in over 27 years

Watch Peter Cottontail
Color eggs
Eat chocolate bunny starting at feet
Leave in freezer and scrape some chocolate off so it lasts for months
Eat chicken Peeps, malted eggs, chocolate eggs, and jellybeans
Leave the green, white, and black jellybeans
Go to church and hear the people say "crucify him" and I don't say it
Also on Palm Sunday you get a palm reed
You take it home and make a work of art out of it and let dry and save
Eat deviled eggs and hard boiled eggs on Easter
Watch The Ten Commandments
Watch HOP
Eat with family
Enjoy your Easter!

I am reading a book called Columbine
It is about the two muderers named Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold
They killed 13 people and injured more than 20
The 20 year anniversary was last Friday
I was on a trip to Arizona at the time
I was on my way up to see the Grand Canyon when the shootings happened
I did not get news of it till the next day when we got back from seeing Sedona
What thoughts did I have at the time of this attack
I thought back to my days of hating school
Mostly hating my inability to get a girlfriend or be popular
I thought that these boys suffered the same
But I was wrong
Eric Harris had girlfriends and did ok
He was in reality a bully just like Ed and Mike and many others at my school
Just he used bullets instead of words
So what is my solution to all this violence going on at school
The real bullets and the word bullets can be stopped if we collectively choose so
I'm not into gun control
I am into guns being locked up in cabinets where the father has the only key
And these same fathers modeling kind words to their wives and their children
That would be a start

Brainstorming an idea for a movie
You take Jurassic Park and combine it with Snakes on a Plane
And you get
Dinosaurs on a Plane
You have to have the smaller meat-eaters like small raptors and such
You get them all pissed off with some drug
And all they want to do is eat
Even if they're not hungry
Of course you get Samuel Jackson to star in it
And he says
Enough is Enough! I have had it with these mother@#$%ing dinosaurs
On this mother@#$%ing plane!
Everybody strap in, I'm about to open some @#$%in windows!

I am getting tired of hearing about the wall
All the attention given to illegal aliens coming here
What about the animals coming over from our northern neighbors
The ones from Canada
I am talking about Canadian geese
Canadian geese in massive numbers crapping in our lakes
Making these lakes unusable by anyone
If you even get the water on you, you get a terrible rash
A rash that persists for weeks
What is Donald Trump doing about this problem?
Nothing much I bet
Needless to say you can't build a wall tall enough to keep out geese
So what is the solution?
I say replace the Thanksgiving turkey with the Canadian goose
That would be a start

When you are running for president
You have to let people know where you stand on the issues
I am against abortion and the death penalty too
Let's have free health care for me and you
Increase funding for space travel and go to Mars
Let's have cheaper and more electric cars
Get rid of the fed and income tax too
Make all drugs as legal as the stuff that come from the animal that says "MOO"
Minimum wage should be 15 dollars an hour
Reduce taxes to give the people back the power
No gun control
Unless you can shoot and put a bullet through the same hole
No more free troops sent to other nations
Protect your own countries and reduce our war machine inflation
No more handouts to illegal immigration
Send them back to their own nation
Social Security needs to be taken away
If you want to live forever, save up to pay your own way

And in the end
The love you take
Is equal to the love you make
I was listening to this song today at work
It seems a lot of the time I feel like a jerk
Am I making love when I work for this multinational company?
Or am I just making them more money?
I don't feel much love out there in the work world
It seems like a rigged game to me
The rich win and everyone else loses
I think the people who get the most enjoyment out of their work
Are the ones who work for themselves
The ones who have found something they enjoy doing
And found a way to also make money at it
The professional golfers or singers or artists
If I had a way to make love and make money at the same time
Being an artist would be where it is at
Then there is no theft of your time, your body, your mind or your soul
There is only one thing
And that is love

Who can we find to point at
And say Bad Man for doing that!
Michael Jackson did a good moonwalk
But his interview with Oprah made everyone talk
Bill Cosby sold some good pudding
Little did we know he gave women pills which wasn't a good thing
OJ was in The Naked Gun which made me laugh a lot
I didn't believe it when they said he stabbed and got caught
Now we have R Kelly with a song I Believe I Can Fly
Gayle King showed us he can also lie
So how many of my heroes fall into islands of blame?
Tearing down men seems to be the game