Just Scratching The Surface
Oftentimes, whatever one is doing, one is just scratching the surface. And, often just after that surface is scratched, someone will come along to “clarify”! Example: Someone said they’d be soon pushing towards their “threescore years and ten” when it was pointed out that according to Psalm 90:10 they might, strength prevailing, reach “fourscore years”. Shades of as simple as ‘No Power = No Computer’.
Think about it. What with today’s potential cyber-attack, cyber-defense, cyber battles, cyber-retaliation, and/or cyber malware, meaning we could “lose it all” as simple as a cyber email sent secretly thru cyber-space from some such place where they play “pin the tail on the camel”! Taberduker! No cyber-chatter! No power-grid, no communications! Something to make “pestiferous” look like comparing feeding frenzied crocodiles to me feeding my croc ‘o crows. Like comparing the verisimilitudes of the tip of the icey iceberg to the vicissitudinary aspects of modern art.
Then, if’n one is practicing eisegesis [Reading one’s own ideas into the text] then one is probably just scratching the surface, whereas if’n one is practicing exegesis [Reading to let the text teach] one is more probable to get the full value thereof. Ineffably copacetic! No “develop a ‘sense and avoid’ solution” necessity. So, to be just scratching the surface can be an open invitation to a showdown …
Showdown
She asked me, “Where’d you get it?”
I answered with a smile
“It still is pretty ain’t it?
Though I’ve had it quite a while!”
The ‘Cowboy Poetry Gathering’
Out West, at Pincher Creek
We all had our wisened verses
And all had a chance to speak,
Rhymes about the roundups
A lifestyle to beguile
Chuck-wagons and the open range
A lone coyote’s howl,
Wild mustangs and foothills
Their pony that had died
Spurs and boots and saddles
Cowboy hats – and pride!
Then, I did poems about our forests
Where “spunk” yet lives and thrives
Rivers, streams, and wangan-boats
Log camps and big “spring-drives”,
Lumberjacks and tote-roads
Axes, peevees, saws
How that life has changed today
And bears – with four-inch claws,
And, when I’d finally finish
They’d stand and cheer and clap
I didn’t have a ‘Buckers Buckle’
Just my ‘Taberduker’ cap!
With the weekend winding up
They came from round the town
To watch a bit of rodeo
And see the “Saturday Showdown”,
There was a local favorite
A rancher nicknamed Slim
If’n I got competition
I knew it would be him,
I admit he fit the figure
Cowpoke and balderdash
Levi’s, legs, and lariat
With a handlebar moustache,
He did a piece on “Prairie Oysters”
Had ’em grinning in his groove
I let him bow and soak it up
And then … I made my move,
It came down to the two of us
He was cocksure the prize was his
“All the votes been counted folks
And this year the winner is …!”
D.C. Butterfield
Meanwhile up at Coffee-Coffee I was talking to the boys from ‘Upyourway’ over a Bunny Burger and a bubbling Balsam Beer [No Burger Junkyard junkie – me!] and I was telling ’em how the other day the wife purchased a roll of that “clings like burdocks to a blanket” food wrap that just plain wouldn’t unroll. On its way into the garbage can I noticed the word ‘Win’ on one side. I checked, and sure e’nuf I could win something, but – the contest closed Dec 31, 2004! True! Taberduker!
The BB4 conundrum – TV dinner – one year, canned salmon – 4 to 5 years, pizza mix – 8 months, bottled water – 2 years + – all more or less! But again, what about the sodium, sugar, carbohydrates, chemicals, etc, that are in them! It’s all in the eye of the holder beholding. Shades of the proverbial “a hell of a hail storm”!
***
Sa-Me-Jo! Then, I suppose that posthumorously, in a couple centuries, but not “immediately if not sooner”, some anguished archecolumnologist [A student studier of ancient (relatively speaking) columns] will attempt a columnistic commentary on these column lines. Or, maybe some scrambling poetaster will endeavor to be my epigone (Epigonus!) after I’m long gone. believe me, he/she will only be … just scratching the surface!
***
Have Pen – Will Write
