A Little Bit of English ...... by Mike Savard (an American, apprently)
By Sandshoe
Conversation between Yup-I-do and Shoe with Lee-Leah talking to the cat in the background:
“Listen,” I said, “She won’t know what on earth I was talking about. You know how you told me you’ve got a card in the glove box of the car for me?”
“Yeh,” he replied, like he always does if he’s positive what I’m talking about.
“I told her I’ve got it and I haven’t. It’s still in the glove box of your car. Least I think so. Unless you took it out.”
‘Nope, it’s in the glove box of the car. How did you know it was there?”
“You told me last year.”
“Listen, listen,” I heard a muffled giggle. He knew a story was on its way. He was listening. “Listen, I got a card in the mail and I rang her up and said to her I really love the card. And she said, ‘O, that’s good, I hoped you would like it.’ I said, ‘I do, I really do. I love the bit that says how much you liked the card I sent.’ I thought she hesitated, but then she said, ‘Yeh, yeh, good.’ She said she gave it to you to give to me and she was glad you dropped it in. I said, ‘No, um, well, I thought it came in the… no, it came in the post, he must have put it into the box. When did you give it to him?’ She said, ‘Day before yesterday’ and I said, ‘It was in the post box yesterday’. ‘O,’ she said, ‘He dropped it in the, um, he probably changed his mind and posted it, that’s good you like it.’ ‘I love it,’ I said.”
It wasn’t for me, I was explaining to Yup, the card I took out of my postbox and assumed came from her and telephoned her. It was for the neighbour with the same name as mine and that was the card from A. And Yup thought it was funny the name was different when he called in meantimes and I supposed she must call herself Ally sometimes, after her surname, He thought that was unusual, he did not know she ever did (he hadn’t looked at the card they were giving me. It transpired). She just decided to be different, he had said, she’s like that. Which would explain the A. Instead of L.
“Now,” he said, “Wait til you hear, I went home and she said to me you finally gave the card to her and I said no, and she said well she reckons you did!”
He laughed. “Don’t know when I am going to give it to you. I should pull it out and write on it 2009 and 2010 and be done with it.”
“You might as well mark it Happy Easter now and save time. I reckon you might as well throw on Happy Birthday while you’re at it.”
He laughed. “I reckon I could save a packet by making it.”
“No, no. We so could make money out of this.”
“I’ll design a card.”
“We’ll call it One Card For Everything.”
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
Didn’t quite know what to make of this story at first, Sandshoe, so I didn’t respond immediately, but mulled it over for a while: I’m left with an overall feeling of profound wistfulness for the ephemeral nature of all human experience; and for cards I should’ve send but didn’t; and for cards I should’ve received but didn’t, too. I’m reminded of the tenuousness of long-distance relationships and how easy it is to lose track of people, even close people.
Now you’ve made me feel guilty; I should write some letters…
😉
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Asty! Dear darl and darling! I have been intending to visit your post to say how much I enjoyed reading it. Excellent feedback. The different responses! My daughter who is v. literate found ‘Docherty’ (located now in the ‘Sandshoe’ folder) too fast and dense with description, said she would ‘get back to me’ after another read. I’m still waiting, mind you she has a son having an op (my grandson had his nose badly done to). On the other hand, my girl surprised me by loving ‘The Card’. She wants more of ‘those’.
Given some subjects and titles arouse a scintillation of emotion (fireworks sometimes detonations), I reckon it’s a courageous or helter skelter experimentalist who throws the gut of that potential arousal into the street of a marketplace. Sometimes stories just do ‘it’ to the emotion when they are read and half remembered six months after their reading. We authors do desire the seven second sell.
Just reflecting. Not telling.
We know a title can be crucial whether a story gets read.
I cut the moniker to its simple statement at the final second. Rule of thumb: consider what is the story about and what was the story intended, if anything, to achieve, and what readers did I hope for, audience.
Most people receive at least one card in their lifetime and give one. I am aiming at that denominator. I want to not exclude any audience and especially to include any who may otherwise be inimidated by ‘give a thousand cards or your best friends will die horrible deaths before they get a card from you’. It was intended to illustrate friends can survive card giving and not giving cards as does love. It is people and what we preach harshly or disseminate as propoganda that causes the snarl. I attended a workshop (years ago) at which a woman told of how she intended to not speak to her son or allow his conversation until he apologised he did not send her a card for her birthday; the facilitator did not call for anybody to feedback their perception, and praised her unreservedly for delineating her “boundaries”, for knowing her “standards” I dunno, sport. I mentally chained myself to my chair to sit out the rest of the sessions (terrible.)
Hence, ‘The Card”. 🙂
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Great idea shoe, one card fits all, good story telling
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Hung, you are over the limit… there are more than three words here 🙂
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Not like me H
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I was quietly accepting of Hung One On’s outburst, H. 🙂
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Hey, thanks 🙂
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Hi sandshoe,
I have a girlfriend who makes us in her inner circle feel very special; for our important birthdays she cuts and pastes our pics into wonderful collages, stories of lasting friendships…I came across an old one the other day and found it so good I put in a frame, it makes me smile everytime I look at it…
So much better than any Hallmark card!
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Timely that Mike put up the story, H. and tickled your fancy. How lovely you framed your girlfriend’s card for its best viewing. I will often think on that. 😉
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sandshoe, you never know what you find in the boxes you packed in a hurry…
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I am going myself to have fun then, H….
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I do that with cards. That means that there’s always a Mother’s day/Christmas/Birthday card in the drawer.
Love the house, especially the basket weave brickwork.
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Big M, thank you for your kind comment. The house on the card is lovely, yes.
Big M, cards given me I can keep now in a lightly glittered voile bag printed with poinsettia leaves and flowers, a bag that originally was purchased by a gift giver to ‘wrap’ Lindt chocolate for me. I marvel I can prop that pretty bag as an occasional decorative enhancement in itself on the tiny shelf I call the mantelpiece. It’s a nice idea for special cards. 🙂
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It feels like a conversation two people have when they’re waiting for their steak and salad out in the beer garden.
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Wow. Love the feedback, Lehan.
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And it feels like they’re talking about my receding hairline!
🙂
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You got the idea. It’s meant to unnerve you, babe. People talk.
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Damn people!
Even though some of my favourite people are people, sometimes people make me scream!
Serve them a steak with a bit of pink in it and they think you’re a mass murderer! They’re lucky I love them!
PS.
Don’t mind me. Euripides has frazzled my brain… Or should that be “sizzled” my brain? In any case, I’m into blah, blah land at the mo!
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Whinging about the steak with the pink in it, I mean.
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Deep in coversation about the card while they were standing in the queue, they miss-answered the barmaid taking the order. When the steak came it was pink, which would have been okay except that it was just the pink of the accompanying Pink Drink. She squealed, hands over her eyes. He put his hand manfully on her shoulder, turned her slightly away. Thrilled to finally have a chance to demonstrate his Many Powers on her, he told the barmaid exactly what to do next. The barmaid took it out to the kitchen, had a cigarette, brought it back. They were back to talking about the card. “Isthisallrightthen?” she clipped. “Oh. Ah. Just put it there?” not pausing to blink away. Seeing that look, the barmaid added an extra couple of drinks to the bill.
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Consider Lehan you have just received by post on the Pig’s wall a Great Guffaw in A Minor (I like A MINOR). 🙂
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Gorgeous blah blah blah land. The land of sentimental mush like a Sno-Cone. The gate has been opened to that place known for blah blah blah … as Euripides has caused a problem of the mind. Eh? How can that be so!!??
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It started with a hairline.
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They are lucky you love ’em.
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“Whinging about the steak with the pink in it, I mean” is in the wrong place and should be down here further not up there. Blah blah blah.
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Euripides is stuffing everything up today.
Lucky for him I love him!
And it’s raining lovely vegie-nourishing water.
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I am amazed, Mike Jones, by your imaginative capacity to see what has been attempted by a writer and ‘give it a go’. Thank you so kindly, but … that you have come up with this illustration is marvellous spooky.
I dedicate this story to my recently late friend, humourist and creative writer: Doug Thoreson b. Traverse City, Michigan, U. S. A. Doug became a permanent resident of Australia at the age of 2 years and left us at the age of 53.
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Thank you, ‘Shoe. (Just winging it, really :-))
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I lived in a house for a while like this, tho’ different roof alignment. One of my fondest reflections is on the children (at ages 10, 11 and 12) with then hubby and self all climbing out of the mezzanine floor window immediately over the front door and negotiating our way to where we sat in a row on the LHS of its rooftop to observe, sharing binoculars between us, the (obviously!) courtship ritual of a bird. One bird displaying to the other. Spectacular.
The 11 year old only testified ‘it’s a pigeon’. When nobody else concurred she announced with certainty, ‘I think you will find it is.’ I described the dance to my dad by telephone, who was so excited because he established her identification was accurate from a detailed explanation in an Encyclopaedia Brittanica of the courtship dance of the Australian Wood Pigeon. Therein it was claimed the dance was one of the more rarely observed because of the height of the performance in the treetops. 🙂
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I bet they were Greek Zorba birds, lost in the aussie woods!
Greek Zorba birds can get quite silly sometimes -because of ouzo and greek coffee. Everybody thinks they’re dancing and romancing but they’re just drunk. Understandable misunderstanding.
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Too tidy, Ato. It was rhythmic swooping that was perfect. Not suggesting of course no drunk Greek Zorba dancing could be perfect, but I think, like this … man … this really was perfect (I saw Nureyev dance and he could do no better). I will try to describe from memory.
One of the kids called out through the mezzanine window, “Hey everybody come and see this” and you know with that wonder in their young voice so everybody within that cooee scampers to see? Well, there when we climbed through the window we all looking up towards where she pointed to the highest tree tops, as far as one must gaze to regard any significant space in the tree tops in a rain forest, immediately could not do otherwise but see. Ohhhh. Aaahhh. We breathed. I am sure we sat without direction. As if one. There were two large birds and one was visible seated on the branch of the tree and another repetitively executed a pattern of flight away from the tree and returned. When I describe the flight as repeated, I mean that the bird displayed seemingly timed exquisite and dramatic swooping patterns in that large space (I can see the white glare of the space as a ballroom but for just one regardless competitive dancer).
I appreciate your sentiments Ato, tho’. I can see the arm in the air, behind the back, the hand resting round the hip, the cummerbund, the intensity, the arch of the back, the stylised dramatic bend of the lifted knee, the Greek Zorba dancer’s foot on the mundane surface below it transformed in demonstration to simulate agile passion and the beating of that heart just – just – as indeed in, yes, that similar way, the dramatic love of a pigeon for another was observed to the extent of its most fervent outstretched wing tip capacity.
Did I do orright, mate to clarify. 🙂
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Thems Zorba Greek birds and they don’t have hands and feet, but they weren’t there and I’ve never seem them besides.
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Gorgeous, sandy, simply gorgeous!
The pigeons couldn’t have a better dance critic!
And your little daughter. I choke up every time I think of kids. Love them to death. Best time of my life when our two were tiny little ladies. Couldn’t get enough of them. Used to poke them in the tummy in the middle of the night so they’d wake up and I’d pick them up and sing them back to sleep! Totally wacky!
Then I’d tell them all my myths before they went to sleep and their eyes would send me to heaven. They’d fall asleep and five minutes later they’d come jump into bed with us until I continued the story a few more minutes.
Yummy days!
Well, they still are, of course. In different ways. Just as amazing to watch, to listen to, to talk with, to eat with. Bubbles up your soul! Makes you wanna dance the Zorba… now where were we?
Ah, yes, the Zorba. No, the pigeons! The wings…
Oh… ah… !
Right now I’m translating a bit of Euripides’ “Heracles’ Children” where a very old man (Heracles’ uncle) wants to join his nephew into the battle. He’s trying to convince the servant to let him go but the servant is making fun of him. His old age, his lack of strength: (The old man is called Iolaos)
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Servant:
Ah, but, my old master, you no longer have the strength you once had!
Iolaos:
So you think that I couldn’t pierce my spear through their shield?
Servant:
You could, old man, but first you’d fall over!
Iolaos!:
Ha! No enemy would dare stand before me and face me!
Servant:
It’s not the face, dear friend that frightens the enemy but the fierce hand!
Damned old age!
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Delightful. Thanks Ato’ for the rap. I will improve at this repartee after one year of study of this skill I can see.
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