Winkie, Buford, and the Perfessor - Two

Winkie, Buford, and the Perfessor owned the road at Petry Bridge, at least that stretch from Buford’s house at the second turn on the Acadia side of the bayou  to the lane that led to Winkie’s house just beyond the first curve on the Vermilion side. To say they owned the road is to say they were its principal traffickers, walking…meandering, really…or biking between domiciles for the better part of most days. The Perfessor was a minority stockholder, the city-slicker who appeared only during summer and on the occasional weekend.

Most folks acknowledged the boys’ claims upon the road…most were relatives, anyway.  Aunts and cousins driving cars, pickup trucks, and John Deere tractors would slow and wave as they approached.  The slowing was an important part of the courtesy, as the road in those days was still gravel and yellow dirt…yellow dirt ground by the gravel into yellow dust.  Speeding by the boys could leave them in a yellow, choking haze.  Most drivers accorded them some consideration…even Larry, usually a speed demon intent on getting to his girlfriend at Indian Bayou…and Bobby, who was sweet on Winkie’s big sister.  Although…Bobby’s moderation of speed may have  been prompted by his reluctance to dust up his convertible, moreso than any thought for the boys’ welfare. Then, also, he may have been thinking of nothing else but Winkie’s big sister, which, in retrospect, is a reasonable assumption.

However, there was one carpetbagger who had no respect for the boys’ title or to the rules of the road.  After the big oil well in Grandma Venie’s back yard had struck the mother lode, and the heavy trucks had carted off the machinery and the timbers that had served as a foundation, floating on the mud of the former rice field, for that enterprise, all that remained visible was a Christmas tree of multi-colored valves and guages to measure and control the flow of the gas and oil on its way to Grandma Venie’s pocket book. There was a man…I’ll call him Red, which may or may not have been his name…whose responsibility it was to read those gauges, at Petry Bridge and throughout the area.  Red had a red pickup truck, which may or may not have had anything to do with his name, directly or conversely.  I say red, but it appeared more of an orange, or fuzzy over-ripe peach, flecked as it was with yellow dust.

For, you see, between stops to read his guages, Red never slowed, as if he were Santa on Christmas Eve.  And he never paid any mind to Winkie, Buford, and the Perfessor, blasting by them leaving a burgeoning cloud of dust and hail of gravel, sending the boys to the shoulder of the road or the ditch for survival.  He never slowed. He never waved.  He never paid a toll…until…

One fine summer day, the boys were pitching gravel at the turtles off Petry Bridge (which, may appear to be an unfeeling thing…however, consider that the boys were never able to hit the turtles, anyway…all they could see were the turtles’ heads, which were very small targets to begin with, which were withdrawn into their natural armor at the flick of a wrist…which does not excuse the boys’ intentions…but, consider that these self-same turtles would and did regularly snatch the bait from the boys’ trotlines…but I digress). Anyway,  turning from the turtles, they spotted a stick of near fishing pole length lying at one end of the bridge and,…eureka…a sizeable piece of string (it might have been discarded fishline, or twine, it would not have been unusual to find either). Thinking and acting as one, as was oft the case, the boys stuck the stick upright in a crack between the timbers at the Vermilion end of the bridge…then stabilized it, like a radio tower, with the string, tied off on nailheads at either side of the bridge.  Then…eureka,..one of the boys, I believe it was the Perfessor, spied a square mechanical nut of hefty size, not likely from farm machinery, but more the type one would find on oil derricks, or Christmas tree valves. This crown was placed on the top end of the  stick.

It was wholly happenstance (or perhaps, providential…although I’d be reluctant to implicate Providence in the boys’ actions that day…even if there was a tincture of Justice in what transpired) that Red in his red pickup was blaring down the Vermilion road, just rounding the curve in front of Grandma Venie’s house,  a wheel’s length ahead of a monstrous cloud of yellow dust.  The boys turned and bolted across the bridge , seeking sanctuary in Acadia Parish.  They were nearing the curve before the last stretch of road to Buford’s house when they heard the brakes on  Red’s vehicle lock and the scratch of tires on loose gravel over baked yellow clay.  Then,..there was the roar of an engine and the blop-blop-blop of a vehicle gunning across the timbers of the bridge.  Red had apparently caught a glimpse of the bottom of the boys’ bare feet as they rounded the first bend.  Fearing that they could not  outrun the pickup on the thoroughfare, Buford, then Winkie, then the Perfessor cut  off into the woods just short of Ed’ard’s house, slipping immaculately through the two strand barbed wire fence, spooking the cow, running as fast as cockleburs would allow, as deep into the trees as they thought necessary…where they hid behind trees…and waited.

After that initial gunning of the engine and blopping of the truck across the bridge, the boys did not hear another sound…except for their own beating hearts and wheezing.  They did not hear Red drive on by, fast or slow…and finally surmised that he had turned around and retreated in the direction from which he had been so hell-bent.  Relaxing and catching their collective breaths, the boys stepped from behind the trees where they had been hiding…and were confronted by Red, on foot, not 20 feet from them.

Without a word, the man gestured that they should follow him back to the truck, where he pointed to the  sunburst crack on the passenger side of the windshield .  Red in the face, he exclaimed, “What were you thinking?  You could have killed me?  Who’s going to pay for this?  Do I need to talk to your daddies?”  Then he spun around, jumped back into his pickup (he was not a tall man), and drove off…howbeit, at a much more moderate speed than he was accustomed.  And, thereafter, he would slow when he passed the boys on the road, out of respect and concern, I’m sure…keeping an eye out for them.

I don’t think that the boys’ parents ever heard of this escapade.  Or anyone else, outside myself, for that matter. 

Winkie, Buford, and the Perfessor - One

I knew Winkie, Buford, and the Perfessor  very well, and had first hand  knowledge of their adventures at Petry Bridge.  However, fifty or more years have come and gone since then, so  my memory of the events may have lapsed…in some cases, I will fill the gaps with prevarication. I will not, and in many instances cannot, account for what is fact or fiction.  I hope, on the one hand,  this will compensate for the erratic tendencies of my mind…and, more importantly, preserve deniability for the innocent, and the guilty.

You should know, first of all, that these are not the boys’ real names, although family and friends who knew them then, will remember the monikers…which were more frequently used than the names their mothers gave them.  I don’t know when or how Winkie came by his nickname. If I told you that I know it was first applied by his older sister (it’s the sort of thing older sisters do), I would be lying…but I do suspect it.  As I recall, Winkie was also the name of a character, a devious pet monkey, in the first grade reading books of that time…and Winkie did have this impish quality about him, especially when the boys were younger.  The trill of his boyish laughter  would send the herons aflittering from their perch in the trees along the bayou.

I do know how Buford was so designated. For as long as I had been acquainted with him, he had been called BB, I think because for most of his early boyhood he was the baby (BB) of the family. I don’t know if his mother ever called him anything else (I distinctly remember his father addressing him, very directly, by his given name), but to his older brothers and his cousins he became simply B.  That was extrapolated to Buford by Winkie, his cousin (did I mention all the boys were cousins?), and by Winkie’s older brother.

The Perfessor was so named by his cousins, perhaps in derision, but certainly with affection, upon hearing Grandma Venie say, on multiple occasions, that he was going to be a preacher or professor someday. This was the grandmother’s wishful thinking, but a prognostication supported, in the cousins’ thinking, by the fact that the Perfessor almost always had his nose buried in a book, whether it was “Beanie and Cecil the Sea-sick Sea Serpent” or the Yearbook of Agriculture. In those days, the boy appeared  less likely to become a preacher; hence, Perfessor.

Winkie and Buford lived at Petry Bridge, which could scarcely be called a community.  Half a dozen or so homes were scattered about the rice fields on either side of Petry Bridge, which spanned Bayou Queue de Tortue, the meandering demarcation between Acadia Parish and Vermilion Parish. Buford and his family lived just north of the bridge, in Acadia; Winkie, to the south, in Vermilion. Several generations of the Petry clan had homes and farms south of the bayou. An earlier member of the family had petitioned for the bridge, which when built was given, however informally, his name: Petry Bridge.  All three of the boys were Petry blood relatives, by their mothers or their father.

The Perfessor lived in city of Crowley, on the Acadia side of the bayou, but removed by 15 miles or so from Petry Bridge. However, from his earliest memory, he spent many a weekend and much of his summers in the country. He was the tenderfoot of the trio, in the literal and experiential sense, a fact the cousins delighted in pointing out to him. The roads on both sides of the bridge, in those days, were gravel on hard yellow clay. Boys went barefoot in the country, especially in summer, so getting from one place to another, or “going  ‘cross the bayou”, as the boys were wont to do, perhaps several times a day, involved walking on hot rocks…not a problem for country boys who had evolved, developed a callous sole on the bottoms of their feet, but a trial for the tenderfoot.

“I’m going ‘cross the bayou” was the common announcement when one or more of the boys set out to meet their cohorts.  Parents were not alarmed, because there were watchful aunts on both sides of the bayou; the singular, predictable caution was, “Don’t play on the bridge”…a caution lost on the boys. The Perfessor did have some early trepidation about the bridge, which in those days was heavy creosote-soaked planks, with perhaps an inch of space between them; he had to overcome the fear that, if he could see through the cracks to the murky water below, he might also, somehow, fall through the cracks.  Then there was the prospect of a car or truck mounting the bridge while the boys were crossing, which required that the boys run to the opposite end of the bridge (avoiding the cracks) or to step the outer edge of the bridge, which had no sideraila…a precarious position to be in because the heavy vehicle rumbling over the pliable planks threatened to launch the boys into the air and plunge them into the bayou…or so it seemed.


As it happened, Winkie, Buford, and the Perfessor were able to negotiate the bridge many times, without mishap, except for the occasional splinter, or a toe stubbed on the head of a loosened spike.  While they spent many hours loitering there, hurling rocks at the nonchalant turtles in the muddy water (Bayou Queue de Tortue: Turtle Tail Bayou), most of their adventures occurred along the banks of the bayou, in the rice fields and barn lots on either side, or in the woods  that skirted the waterway…heavy woods with moss- laden trees and strewn with think vines, many a dark cul-de-sac, faintly discernable trails…a boys world of enchantment.  And therein lie the tales…which are to follow.  [02-09-12)

Printing Press

The first time I saw the printing press, it was still in Dan Lemmon's shop on Pine Street at Avenue H in Crowley.  The building after, perhaps before, was a gasoline station, but he had a small, shoestring printing business there; I don't think he had more than the one press.  I could not have been a half dozen years old, but I remember Dad took me with him a number of times when he went over for coffee and confabulation.  There didn't seem to be a lot of printing business to interfere with the conversation.

I next recall Dad and a group of men unloading the press from a trailer in our driveway.  They maneuvered the heavy cast-iron machine to the garage using boards and fence posts; not an easy task, from what I can remember.  They set the press up on a platform Dad had built at the back corner of the garage; the rest of the garage floor was bare earth and crushed concrete.  The platform was barely big enough for the press and the cabinet Dad had built to hold eight or ten typecases.

The press was an old model of the Roycroft variety, although I'm not sure that was the brand.  Heavy cast-iron construction, with a large cast-spoke wheel that Dad had hooked to an oversize electric motor.  (He later attached that motor to his table saw, which could rip through four-inch planks of gumwood.)  The press had facing plates, with a frame for the composed type on one side and the printing surface on the other.  When the press was running the plates came together like jaws of death.  In the open part of the cycle, two soft rubber rollers swiped down to ink the typeface, then swung back up out of the way as the plates came together to transfer the inked imprint to the stock.  On the up cycle, the rollers lapped up fresh ink from a round, flat plate at the back of the press.  Dad would slather printer's ink, with the viscosity of heavy blackberry jam, onto the plate before he revved up the press.  The plate was actually in two parts, an inner round plate, with a halo-type section around it.  The machinery rotated the two sections at different rates, clanking as they did so, so the rollers never made the same tracks in their traverse of the plate, making for even dispersion of the ink.

There was no automatic feed process for the print stock.  The printing face was covered by a heavy oiled paper, bound down with metal straps.  Dad would make a target run with the press, leaving an imprint of the typeface on the oiled paper.  Then, with the press stopped, he would insert little spring clips strategically on the oiled paper surface, in a configuration that would accommodate the printing stock (business cards, flyers, etc.).  When the press was running, during the open cycle, Dad would slip a blank card or flyer into the tongs of the spring clips, then, as the faces of the plates of the press came together, he would pull a long-handled lever at the left side of the machine, next to the wheel, to allow the type surface to actually contact the stock surface, to print the stock.  Then, on the open part of the cycle, he would push the lever back, so that the press could continue to run without surfaces touching.  He might let the cycle run several times, without printing, then, in an open interval he would slip another card into the spring clips, pull the lever again, print the card...then repeat the process.  When all things were aligned, and he had gotten himself synchronized with motion of the machine, he would leave the level pulled back, and smoothly pulled a printed card out with one hand and inserted new stock with the other hand, each time the plates yawned open.  He did not push the lever back, to separate the faces, until he ran out of stock, or the ink needed to be replenished.  It was always fascinating, and frightening, to me to know that, whether that lever had been pulled or not, there was never more than a quarter of an inch between those plates when they came together, not nearly enough space to allow you to leave your hand in there while the press was running.  Dad's motions became one with the machine, requiring a level of concentration that did not allow for interruption by a small boy; I was always warned ahead of a run.  Dad would fold strips of emory cloth over the tips of his middle fingers, held on with rubber bands, to give his hands sure traction for inserting and removing the stock; he seldom dropped or misprinted one...and he never got his hands smashed.

Dad never got a printing business off the ground, though he talked about it for most of his life.  For a short time after the press arrived, he printed business cards for several people, and church flyers for annual revival meetings.  The press languished there at the back of the garage for all my boyhood and teenage years, surfaces rusting and accumulating dust, the motor long since retasked.  The rollers had been secured in their wooden box, but became pocked by time or the appetites of critters that were able to access them; to his latter years, Dad would periodically try to find some supplier who could replace them, but was unsuccessful.

The print shop was my retreat during my youth.  I tried my hand at composing and printing, powering the big wheel of the press by hand, inking the type with a stamp pad.  I even managed to memorize the standard format of a typecase, after realizing the letters of type were not configured alphabetically, but rather by their utility; there were bigger spaces for higher quantities of vowels, and x, y, and z, upper or lower case, were scarce.  My printing never amounted to much more than my own name.  When, in later years, it became obvious Dad would never use the press again, I expropriated his composing stick and the letters of my name in 24-point italic Roman type (is that redundant?), which I have to this day.

My Dad probably had printer's ink in his blood, hence his affection for that old press.  When he came back from World War II, he apprenticed as a linotype operator at our hometown newspaper, and moonlighted at a printing business across the street.  He left that line of work for most of my childhood years, but took it up again while I was in high school, working in the hot-lead composing room of an area newspaper.  During that time, I worked at our hometown newspaper pretending to be a reporter, where I saw the last of the linotypes Dad had trained and worked on breathing its last hot-leaded breath...computers had been installed, and the newspaper was being composed on computer screens, then transferred directly to paper.  A similar transition, and my Dad's illness, resulted in his retirement from the printers' trade for good several years later.

When he finally relinquished all prospects of starting up his press again, and realized not even antique dealers were interested in buying it, Dad negotiated with the mayor of our town to donate the machine to the city museum.  We thought his report of this deal might be spurious, until an inquiry to city hall by my sister when Mom and Dad were finally vacating their home for more secure surroundings, resulted in the prompt appearance of city workers to cart the press away.  My sister reported that they attempted to manhandle the machine, rather than roll it out in the manner I recall it was rolled in, and they managed to damage one of the sturdy cast-iron feet.  But the press has a new home; I have not been back to see it.  I did visit a reconstructed village in North Dallas several years ago, with a print shop, where I saw about five of these old presses lined up and ready for service...if somebody could just locate a supplier of soft rubber rollers.

Fathers Day 2012

My daddy would have been proud...I built, or rebuilt, a fence this weekend. Used a hammer, hand axe, crowbar, wood chisel, hole punch, nail punch, circular saw, hand saw, keyhole saw, tree saw, pruning shears, shovel, ratchet wrench, crescent wrench, screwdriver, hand level, string level, electric drill...all of which he taught me to use.

I also remembered lessons learned (some not so well, some forgotten) on jobs and projects we worked on when I was younger, and he was still around to teach me.  Jobs usually take longer than you plan: I expected to switch out two panels of wood fence in an afternoon, but it took two days (my neighbor whipped out his section of the fence in half a day...he rebuilt his section the old way, two rails and individual slats...he was sipping ice tea on the porch long before dusk...I was still working when the mosquitoes came out).  Measure twice, cut once (I should have measured three times).  Things constructed 30 years ago may have been put together by craftsmen, but not necessarily with a uniform plan (don't presume that 8 foot panels from Home Depot can easily be fitted to posts that may be 7.5 feet apart, or 9.5 feet). Modern materials or units may not warrant the exact same assembly (preconstructed fence panels have 3 rails, not 2...I had to buy additional hardware...which, because of variance in style, could not be used with the old hardware).  Smashed thumbs are inevitable.  Maintain or replace your tools before you start a job (I don't know if there are still little old men who spend their days sharpening handsaws, as in my daddy's day...mine has been dulled by 30 years of use and abuse).  Old construction does not remain square or level (shifting foundations and runoff from heavy rains, alternating with drought, has apparently resulted in a 4-6 inch slope that didn't exist when the original fence was built...had to do some shoveling, leveling, and creative graduated construction to accommodate).  A project cannot be exactly defined before hand (had to cut away tree limbs and prune shrubs to get to the fence).  Some variances must be accepted (10 feet of "my" back fence are really my neighbor's back fence...different height, style...and the posts are on his side).  "Some things you have to leave for the painters to cover up" (that's a direct quote).  Clean-up is a pain...which is why it is a good idea to take your son along on jobs and projects, to help pick up the debris...(but the skills and lessons otherwise learned still make the time working at your daddy's side worthwhile...and retrospectively appreciated).

Memorial Day 2012

My father, James H. Hoffpauir, served in the Army Air Forces--specifically, the 8th Air Force, during World War II.  He was assigned to the 44th Bombardment Group, 506th Bombardment Squadron, and flew in 14 combat missions in the latter period of the war, from August 1944 to April 1945, in support of the Allied invasion and campaign in Europe. He was a a nose gunner and bombardier in B-24 heavy bombers based at Shipdham, England.  Missions included bombing of railways, marshalling yards, military headquarters, docks, and airfields, in France, Germany, and Holland. His bombardment group aided the ground offensives at Caen and St. Lo. The group dropped food, ammunition, and other supplies to airborne troops in Holland in September 1944. Their bombardments helped check the enemy during the Battle of the Bulge in the winter of 1944-45.  They attacked airfields and transportation terminals in support of the advance into Germany, and flew resupply missions during the airborne troops assault across the Rhine 1945. My father's last recorded mission was on April 20, 1945; the 44th Bomber Group flew its last combat mission on April 25, 1945.  He had arrived in England as a Corporal, a rank he retained during earlier missions on the periphery of the European theater. In later missions to the interior of Germany, including Berlin, he bore the rank of Sergeant. It was policy to give all bomber crewmembers the rank of sergeant when they were sent deeper into enemy territory, on the presumption that, according to international protocols, they would be afforded better treatment should they become prisoners of war (personal histories indicate that the protocols were not always
respected).

On his first missions, Dad was listed as nose gunner and "togglier"--he referred to his duty as "visual bombardier", essentially watching to see when the lead bomber dropped its bombs, then pulling the toggles for the bomb hatches of his own B-24.  On later missions, he is listed as nose gunner and bombardier; there were several attacks during which his plane was in the "lead" squadron. The B-24 in which he flew the most missions was nicknamed "Down De Hatch". Several years ago, my Internet search discovered a picture of Down De Hatch after her return from England. Her guns had already been removed, and she was in a queue for dismantling and salvage...it was moving for me to see the specific position, in the nose of this particular plane, where my father flew during combat missions. He never spoke of firing his guns in anger, but there is no doubt he was required to do so. While the Luftwaffe had been cleared from the skies in the latter months of the war, the accounts of missions in which my father flew indicate that they were attacked from the air. On one such mission, the Allied fighter pilots alone took credit for downing 25 enemy planes; this does not account for the damage inflicted by the bombers' nose, turret, waist, and tail gunners. Dad did report, with chagrin, that he once fired--as he had been trained to do--at a fighter plane flying directly at the nose of his bomber...only to be informed later that it was an Allied plane, flown by an officer who knew it was strictly forbidden to approach friendly bombers head on. The fighter pilot later apologized to Dad, and his commander.  My father was just relieved that, in this instance, his aim had not been very good.

One of my father's "war relics" was a British banknote bearing the autographs of most of his bomber crew, now one of my treasures. He had recited their names to me on several occasions, and I found a listing in a history of the 44th Bomb Group: John Freidel, Pilot; Bob Maas, Co-Pilot; Douglas Owen, Navigator; Rene Lessard, Radio Operator/Gunner; Robert Hebert, Engineer/Top Turret Gunner; Howard Simon, Right Waist Gunner; George Kazantzas, Left Waist Gunner; Donald Lavoy, Tail Gunner; and, of course, James Hoffpauir, Nose Gunner/Bombardier.  On Dad's last mission, in a B-24 that was so equipped, David Rosen was listed as Ball Turret Gunner.  Dad was thrilled, in the latter years of his life, to have several visits from Robert Hebert and his wife, Pearl. Robert reported that he and Dad were the last of the crew still living...they have both since passed away, Dad on August 18, 2009.

My father indicated that he was stationed at multiple bases during his training and following his return from England; I was never sure--and I'm not sure he could remember--where he was located, and when.  Reviewing group histories, some of the sites he talked about fall into place. He was inducted and received basic training in Louisiana, likely at Barksdale Field. He has postcards and pictures citing Laredo, Texas, likely also a training station. He also has pictures annotated as taken in Florida, including Panama City; MacDill Field is listed in group histories. Again, he was stationed at Shipdham, England,throughout his overseas tour. His memory of stations after his return to the States was a blur, but several sites in group histories synch with his accounts: Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Andrews Field, Maryland (likely the base for several excursions he described into New York City and Washington, D.C...by Army truck or jeep, rather than by plane); Great Bend, Kansas. Dad did not specifically mention Kansas, but he did recount that he was involved in salvage of planes in Arkansas; he may have confused the two places, or maybe I am.  He was discharged from the service at San Antonio, Texas, from which he took the Sunset Limited passenger train to his home and family in Crowley, Louisiana.

Sometime back somebody asked me, "Is it better to know what you believe, or to believe what you know?" I answered, on the spur of the moment, "Yes!" And then...a little less blithely, but no less truthfully, the old saw, "It's not what you know; it's who you know." And...the corollary: "It's not what you believe; it's who you believe."

Of course it matters what you believe, and what you know, and what you believe you know, and what you know you believe...the two are not so much in conflict, as they are convergent, congruous. It's hard to tell the difference sometimes...even harder to admit the difference. But, the who is always, and in both instances, a reality. What I know...and what I believe...is eminently affected by who I've known, and who I believe (and who I don't). The family I grew up in, the teachers who schooled me, the professors who widened my horizons or warped my mind, the preachers and pastors, the best buddies, the girl friends I was trying to impress, the imbeciles whose absurdities bounced off my outer defensive shields...all affected what I have come to believe and/or profess to know.

I believe there is one core Truth. Some are a lot closer to it that I am; many see it more distinctly than I do.  Our various life histories and artificial lenses cast it in different colors and shapes, but if it's the Truth we're seeing, however imperfectly, I believe it is one Truth. To quote a "who" in my history, "The Truth is between us." We may be looking at it, or looking for it, from opposite sides, or at different angles, but I believe, ultimately, there is one Truth. I find it, when I am most lucid, in a Person, Jesus Christ. One who is the Truth about God and about Man...and all that is in them, and between them, and amongst them. That's what I believe..and believe that I know.

I arrived at this point because of people I know, and people I have believed. Some I have known intimately, seeing their integrity, sensing their love and warmth, catching their spirit...enlightened by their words.  Others I know only by reputation...but I have been as much affected by their lives and teaching. Some from ancient days, whose words are inscribed in the premier Book, the Bible (from where I stand)...arguably the words of God, tinctured by the transcriptionists' personalities. There are voices I have been privileged to hear: John Claypool, David Mains, Major Ian Thomas, Reuben Welch, Morris Wiegelt, Larry Fine. Wise counsel from Hazel Robbins, Webb Lidzy, Duane Snavely, and my friend A.D. Bracken.  The printed words of John and Charles Wesley, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, E. Stanley Jones, Leon Morris, Mildred Wynkoop, Clark Pinnock. Fiction by Susan Howatch, Robert Heinlein, and...for an interval...Anne Rice.  From the darker side, the polemics of Christopher Hitchens and others...contrast always makes for a sharper image.

The dynamic and degrees of knowing and/or believing are dependent, in part, on the facility of my mind. Which can be scary, considering that on any given day I might be not in my right mind, or even out of my mind. So I am cautioned to exercise my mind, and to consider my thoughts. To the extent that I seek the Truth, for its own sake first, and weigh the who and what I believe I know, I will find the Truth. But I cannot rely solely on my own mind. In the quest for Truth which is beyond us...and the greater portion is always beyond us...I have been tutored to invoke and consider the extraordinary ministrations of the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit, as "foolish" as that seems. The penultimate Who, winnowing all the words and wisdom of the men and women to which I have been exposed, testing the tentative conclusions of my own mind, confirming in some mystical integration of mind and spirit, human and divine, what is the Truth.  Who is the Truth.  Anyway, that's Who I believe, and what I believe I know.

[For more authoritative discussion of this "foolishness", see I Corinthians, Chapters 1-3.]

I can't say that I am any more foolish on April 1 than on any other day of the year, in any prior year of my life.  I am still prone to the incautious comment, venting of frustration, error of calculation, hasty or heartless judgments.  I'd like to think those do not occur nearly so often, or not so grievously...but it could be I'm fooling myself.  It does seem that the offenses, perceived or real, of the distant past are more vivid than ever.  Those tend to resurrect at odd and unpredictable moments, searing through my brain and kicking me in the stomach.  And they tend to cluster, to tag team, in roller derby fashion...hitting me with a succession of punches that take my breath away. And then I think, after all this time, the parties involved have long since forgotten, or at least forgiven...the foolishness, and the fool. But I haven't. I suppose that's foolish.