The great scourge of 2021 is over. The cicadas, those who survived have burrowed into the ground. Dead carcasses abound but after a couple good rains they'll only be a distant memory.
As I turned the corner on Emerald Parkway and Dublin Road it hit me that this spot had to be the epicenter of those critters while they were copulating. The noise they gave off would stop a train.
Isn't it weird how the human mind works. You'll have a thought then move onto another and another and another. So, I began thinking the next time these little guys show up I'd be 92. Fat chance of that happening but it does provide a goal; sort of like when O Henry wrote The Last Leaf. If you didn't read the story a girl was deathly ill and convinced herself she'd die when the last leaf was off a tree outside her bedroom window. A kindly gentleman glue it on a branch and she lived through winter to see spring or something like that.
It was then that my mind wandered again. We'll go through life remembering nonsensical pieces of information that do us absolutely no good but when it comes to remember math and science we're clueless.
So, as I was driving along I began thinking about when I was seven years old. During the summer twins, Jeff and Jerry Johnson stayed the summer with there grandma and we played every day. On one hot summers eve they taught me a ditty about death and dying which I still have in my pitiful brain and it has to do with turning 92. So, here goes:
Never laugh when the hearse comes by
Because some day you're sure to die.
They put you in a big black sheet
and bury you 'bout six feet deep.
The worms crawl in and the worms crawl out
the ants play pinochle on your snout.
You start to decay to a mushy green
And puss runs out like whipping cream---
And me without my spoon.
This was sixty-eight years ago and I can't remember what I had for dinner last night.
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