Bill Buschel, who died in February 23, turbocharged my involvement in open mics. I had spoken before at literary salons and libraries, but I didn’t see how to move ahead. Then I discovered the Hudson Valley Writers Center open mic in 2019. With Bill running the show I became a regular. Over the months and years, first in person and then on Zoom during and after the pandemic, I found my voice with his encouragement.
From Bill’s astute, heartfelt comments I learned the value of the telling phase, how words can capture a moment, a personality speaking out, or lashing out. In his honor, I’m calling this piece “Everyday Poetry,” lines I’ve heard over the decades, or said myself, that I associate with a dot in time. I’ve provided context for them. They fall into three topical obsessions: Texas, dating and my parents.
Nobody thinks, “Oh, I’m speaking in poetry!” but, looking back, they were.
The wonder years on the border
“They sit in the dark, because dark are their sins.” Spoken by a devout Baptist lady from my youth, looking askance at her daughter and her husband watching TV in the dark, with windows shades pulled down to block the blazing Texas sunshine.
“I’d sit
here and talk and you’d eat it all up.” Something directed to me by a fellow
high school student, explaining why she wouldn’t go out with me.
Shirley-isms and stuff my father said
Some are
what I call Shirley-isms, named after my late mother. She had an earthy, ribald quality to what she
said. For example: “She sure knows how to wobble her twat,” about a beauty
pageant contestant, the daughter of a dear friend of hers. In my youthful
innocence, I thought “twat” referred to her hindquarters. How wrong I was!
“Don’t get
anybody pregnant,” her sole piece of advice in 1976 when I left Mission, Texas,
for Princeton University. She had nothing to worry about during my college
years. She also passed on this bit of life experience when noting a work friend
who was having a baby: “Pregnant ladies need to pee a lot.”
“You’re just like your father.” “You’re just like your mother.” My divorced parents, alas, used me as a target in the unfixable resentments of their short marriage. They both expressed the same thought. My mother spoke from frustration, my father from malice.
“They’ll eat
you alive at Princeton if you don’t know opera.” That’s from my father, part of
his relentless campaign to convince me to spend my senior year of high school at the Lawrenceville School
in New Jersey, to become a polished young gentleman. Actually, not knowing much
about Bruce Springsteen was a bigger impediment at Old Nassau.
Youthful influencers and fellow Texans
This sports classic came from an assistant coach for my high school baseball team. Coach Canales thought some of the players weren’t hustling enough at a practice, so he said, “Grandma was slow but she was old.” Did the guys run faster? I don’t know, but I remember this pithy observation and use it to this day.
“Motorcycle helmet laws are a form of communism,” a beauty from my high school typing teacher, which captures a common political viewpoint of Texas in the 1970s. Maybe now, too.
“Polo, I’m going to get the hell out of Texas.” A high school classmate reminded me I told him this. And I did get the hell out, although I always like going back. In fact, I’ll be returning to my 50th reunion in June.
“The Sandinistas are going to march up through Mexico and invade Harlingen.” This was a prophetic comment by a high school classmate at our 10th reunion on the Texas-Mexico border in 1986 during the Reagan era, after the communist revolution in Nicaragua. Amusing and somewhat dubious sounding at the time, the comment became far more accurate when the Biden-Harris junta flung open the borders to one and all in 2021.
“I love it
here in Texas, we can build whatever we want and shoot our guns.” As said by a
contact involved in Houston real estate. The building part is because Houston
really does have no
zoning laws.
Sharp observations from tour guides
“One thousand
percent they hate the Jews here,” from Benny, my tour guide in Israel in June
1982 when our group visited Hebron,
in Judea and Samaria.
 |
| Marina in the Kremlin |
“It is not so interesting to kill them quickly,” a keen historical observation by Marina, my peppy Intourist tour guide in Moscow in September 1987. She was referring to how Ivan the Terrible treated the nobles, but I’ll always associate that with the vast bloody sweep of Russian history. I’ve borrowed the phrase when I share my thoughts on innovative approaches to criminal justice and counter-terrorism.
“The Sandinistas
are going to march up through Mexico and invade Harlingen.” This was a prophetic
comment by a high school classmate at our 10th reunion on the
Texas-Mexico border in 1986 during the Reagan era, after the revolution
in Nicaragua. Amusing and somewhat dubious sounding at the time, the comment became
far more accurate when the Biden-Harris (mis)administration flung open the borders to one and
all in 2021.
Paradise lost
Two poetic
musings come from a romantic interest of the early 1980s. “Van, you’re only 25
but I’m already 25.” She wanted to move our relationship along, after two
months. Her biological clock was ticking and she had no time to waste.
She also said, “I’ve been fucked so many times I had to get a bigger diaphragm.” Was she trying to make me jealous, or grateful that a woman of such vast erotic experience was dating me? People who knew about such sensitive matters later told me, "Ummmm, no, that’s not the way it works."
And finally:
“You’re a self-involved prick who just doesn’t get it.” Another moment from a
relationship gone south. That could be the title of the next volume of my memoirs, or a
key line in a rom-com novel.
What do others remember about me?
All these memories are coming, of course, from my side of the story. I am sure I have said many, many things that lodged in people's memories, ranging from moving to hurtful to sublimely idiotic. I would often blurt something without thinking through the implications. I cringe at the time I told a woman her mother's apartment was, if I recall correctly, "a great example of 1950s Jewish home decorating." That certainly didn't land right.
If anybody reading this wants to contribute your own example of my everyday poetry, well, hit me with your best shot.
Remembering Bill Buschel in his own words
So, Bill, thanks
for everything. May your memory be a blessing for your many friends and family. I'll always remember you.
