Sign Here Please

Where do I start? I found out recently there are some things that happen in life that throw you for a loop and when the dust clears you don't know . Know what to say . Know how to say . When to say . To whom to say . To family of course . Obviously . And then . . . . It effects only some of the everybody's we know but then I don't know how I know . Maybe it effects a nobody in the everybody's who turns out to be a somebody one day that anybody could have seen coming in the future . Sorry . I'm obfuscating 'cause I'm scared to tell you . . . But here goes , what I know as told to me and my own personal recollections . I hope it helps . . . .

I couldn't breath . I couldn't feel my legs. With tears in my eyes I opened my mouth and tried to suck in air as my heart pounded out of my chest . The air I managed to take in felt like fire . I think we all know this day will come but you never reeeally expect it . And we hope it wont be this bad .
"You ok dare buddy? Look at me . Look in my eyes !" Whats this guys deal yelling at me like this . It's not like I'm dying .
"Mark ! You gonna make it Mark? Hold on for me buddy!" He said Mark like Maawk . He's from Brooklyn I think. Or is it the Bronx . I'm from the south so what do I know about New York ?
"Gee he don't look so good Vin . I don't tink he gonna make it ."
"Tito shut ya mouth  and gimme some water an a towel " he barks . "He's gonna make it." He said water like 'waaada' .
I'm sweating bullets . I think Tito's right . I'm not gonna make it . I feel someones hands on me . Pushing . My shirt is off and it feels weird having someone else's hand on me . I think it's the Vin guy . Vin . Gotta be short for Vinny right? Which is short for Vincent I think . Why do parents give names to kids that are gonna be shortened anyway? Just go with Bob or Joe to start with . Maybe corporations are right . Maybe we should be a number . I want to be 37 .
It's funny what goes through your mind at a time like this .
"Stay wid me Maawk . Ya gonna make it . . . "
" He's fadin Vinny , he . . ."
I knew it was Vinny . He shoots , he scores .
". . . ain't breedin so good ."
And Vinny's pounding on me and yelling something I can't hear and my heart struggles to pound the way it has for fifty  years and I know it's the end , my body's spent and as my eye's close and my muscles go limp and I begin to fall , finally into eternity and my ears grasp one final sound .
"Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee . . . "

Darkness . Silence . Void . "What's happening to me?"  I remember thinking . Why am I here and how am I here . A voice breaks the emptiness as if carried by a faint breeze and whispers "Sign here please ." It's the voice of satan .
" Huh?" I mumble , staring at her . He's a she .
"I  saaiiddd . . . " drawing the word out , "sign here please , right by the X."
"I uugh , I . . ."
"Look Maawk . . " .She begins in that high pitch Brooklyn accent . Satan's a New Yorker . This , I believe . " . . . we done been ova dis so jus sign an-"
"Oh , right . I was just reading the-"
"You's don't gotta read it , it's just standard boiler plate . Look , " she says with apparent exasperation , "I got a hair appointment in ten minutes so if you don't mind ," she says and points to the X . "Sign here please ."

. . . eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep . Beep .Beep . Beep . I take a violent deep breath and my eyes flair open . My heart's still pounding , sweat pouring off my balding head and my legs . . . I can't feel my legs . "Oh God , what have I done? What's happening to  me?" I think when , wham , there's a slap to my back and a burst of pain as the treadmill slows to the off position and a voice exclaims "Maawk ! Ya did it ! Ha ha . . . I knew ya had it in ya ! "Tito didn't tink so but I knew if I pushed ya ya'd make it altho ya had me scared dare for a second . Taut he might be right and we was gonna lose ya's ! Hey Tito ! I tol ya he was gonna make it din I ? Dat's ma boy ! Alright , now hit the showers and tomorrow , we'll see if we's can get ya's up to a half mile !" he said with a big 'atta boy' smile and pounds me on the back one more time as a send off . "Tomorrow" He yells . "Don't be late!"
I can't believe I joined a gym . An enthusiastic psycho gym . Man . How'd I get talked into this I think to myself as I walk toward the exit . As I pass the front desk I see a man pondering a sheet of paper , a pen in his hand and I wonder if I should intervene . Behind the desk I see satan , impatiently tapping her fingers on the blotter , a Malboro pinched between her lips , blue smoke wafting upward toward yellowed ceiling tiles . She glances over and looks at me and smiles a devious smile , takes a deep drag and  blows me an air kiss filled with nicotine . I shudder and put my head down and walk out the door . She did have nice hair though .

I found out recently what they did before gyms . They did push ups and sit ups at home . And ran around the block . Well some of us did . Mostly though , I think anymore we only eat at home and drive around the block . Some of us even eat while driving around the block ! I'm hopeless .

Most of us need help to accomplish something important or significant in our lives I reckon because most of those lofty things in life are hard to get . They take effort and I think , mostly , time . If you're anything like me you're a great starter but not so good on the follow through . In my case I've found I'm lazy surrounded with pockets of hard work and I try to only let the pockets show . Gotta look good for my fans . I've come to know there's a whole lot more cloth in the rest of the pants than what makes up the pockets and I better take care of that or there'll be no pockets to worry with . And I can't do it alone . And I think I'm not alone .

There is a reason there are gyms. And Alcoholics Anonymous . And Weight Watchers . And psychiatrists and psychologists . And churches . An good neighbors . We weren't built to do it by ourselves . We all have frailties and weaknesses that sometime become anything from bad habits to addictions and we hide it . Can't have people thinking bad about us . The Apostle Paul said in Galatians 6 to carry each others burdens because life is hard . We find ourselves stuck in a rut , depressed , and addicted to booze or TV or a bucket of fried chicken as a way to deal . And deal we must , but don't do it alone . You'll never make it . 

I'm in a rut . I hate being in the place in life I am and some days I can barely work . I've been here before . I get out , man up , but seem to get back in the rut now days as quick as I get out of 'em and it's a merry-go-round I want to get off of . I called the preacher today . He'll help . I'm going to see some friends . They will too . Probably I'll go to the gym . And eat better , maybe broccoli  and kale . Whoa . Gear down there big shifter , don't want to move too fast . I've learned you can live life while ignoring God and get by . And be miserable . I don't want to be miserable anymore .

There's a dotted line before my life with a caption above it . It says 'Sign Here Please'. I think I will .

Porches

Streets of gold . 24 carat or solid I wonder ?

I built houses once upon a time back when I was younger living in West Palm Beach . Helped build I suppose I should say as I was nineteen and barely knew how to swing a hammer . I did more toting and fetching than driving nails . The one time they did let me use the nail gun I nailed two fingers together so back to toting and fetching . They let me have a tool belt though which is all I really wanted anyway 'cause the hammer made that cool clacking sound when I walked . Yeah . I'm a carpenter .

The company I worked for was called Amazing Builders out of  West Palm Beach . Amazing ? I guess the fact they let me work with 'em for a year or so was amazing but we never got to see a finished house so I don't know how they knew . They were a framing crew who just did the form work , stud walls , roof trusses and deck . And poof like a puff of smoke we were gone and on to the next one so we , or at least I , never got to see what it looked like when it was complete . And boy would I have loved that . They were mansions built on the beach in Palm Beach , fifteen or twenty thousand square feet affairs with maybe not streets of gold but driveways anyway . Gold plumbing for sure . Does water taste better out of one of those ? I'll never know this side of heaven . Wait . Jesus said I'll  thirst no more . Scratch that .

I never wanted to live in a mansion - too much to clean and who changes the light bulbs in a 20 foot ceiling ? I always wanted to live in a log cabin in the woods on the side of a mountain . A little two room affair with a fireplace and a front porch with two rockers and a hound dog under it . I wanted to plant a garden . I'd have chickens pecking the ground around the front steps , a goat tied to a post , pigs in a pen and a cow in the barn . I wanted to cut down a tree and chop wood and stack it on the side of the house under a lean to , hoping it would be enough to last through a snowy winter . My wife would cook chili and chicken n dumplings and such in a cast iron pot hanging from a hook over the fire and come out and stand on the porch and holler ''Come and get it'' while banging a triangle hanging from a rope next to a porch post . After dinner my bride and me would sit in those rockers on the front porch and I'd blow a mellow tune on the harmonica while she sewed up the holes in my socks and dungarees .We'd sleep in a feather bed under a under a homemade quilt made from fabric she got for a real good price at the general store down the holler and I would wake up of a morning  to the smell of coffee and biscuits and bacon from the pig we used to have . Perfect .

Perfect until government revenue men came with their pick axes and hammers and laid waste to my still and set fire to my grow house behind the barn . You didn't think this picturesque setting came for free did ya ? Lawmen . They carted off the animals and the bank took the house on account of I couldn't pay the note and here Mabel and me set behind bars on a hay bed 'cause somebody , probably that preacher man , called john law . sigh . It was nice while it lasted . I made some good hooch I'll tell ya .

I was thinkin' about this last night . Not the moonshine but the porch . We went to the picture show last night and there was a scene where a little girl walked onto an old wooden porch , weather worn and peeling . The porch , not the girl . The boards creaked as she stepped over and sat in the swing and stared off at the field where the wildflowers swayed in the wind . Inside the house her alcoholic father lay in bed with a sickness , blood seeping from his nose as he was passing from this life to beyond . They never said what he was dying from but die he did and as he did so she sat there in that porch swing  and seemed to take comfort of some sort feeling the sun , the breeze and the sweet smell of roses . I wept .

I've always fantasized about a porch and it's therapeutic value . It's because some of my best moments , moments I was so close to God it felt like He was in the rocking chair next to me , came while I sat on some wooden porch . It's like , for me , inside the house is the harshness of life or maybe just life in general . It's marriage and money . It's kids and jobs and cars . Sickness and old age and the heart break of losing someone you love . But the porch . The porch . It's where I go to meet God . My Dad . I rock and I talk and I listen . He tells me He loves me and He holds my hand . And as I get up to go He stands and kisses me on the forehead and says come on back any time . He'll keep my chair warm .

In 2014 , I look to find myself on the porch more . I hope you'll join me .