Bloggadocious 222

Thursday, June 20, 2013

THOUGHTFUL THURSDAY

Since it is Thoughtful Thursday I want to share a few instances when people were very thoughtful towards me, and showed me so much kindness that I'll never forget them!

The first thing that comes to mind is when I started riding the buses through St. Louis back in the 60's in my early teens.

I did not know how to get to the places I wanted to go, did not know how to use the transfers, where to change buses, or when to get on and off.

There were certain bus drivers that were especially patient and kind to me, and would overlook the times I lost my transfer or didn't have enough change to put in the cool change thingy.

They always seemed to be the ones that were dressed sharply, who were polite, helpful and smiling to everybody.

I looked up to them, and respected them as I would a Cardinals baseball player, or an airplane pilot.

I was on the varsity wrestling team when I was a sophomore in high school.

I wrestled in the 180 pound weight class, and so did Art.

Art was a magnificent athlete with a perfect body for wrestling that was lean, muscular and fast.

I was strong, but not half the wrestler as Art.

We came to be great friends and he loved singing, like me, and we would sing our hearts out on the bus, on our way to and from wrestling meets.

At practice, he was so fast and smart that I never, ever had a chance of beating him.

Then came the day we had to wrestle each other to see who would go to the state championship to represent our school.

I had wrestled Art many times, and I knew I would be pinned in a couple of minutes, as usual, but now, it would be in front of a lot of spectators, and the love of my life at the time, Barbara Branneky, the cute wrestling manager.

Not actually Barbara Branneky, but you get the idea!

So I start wrestling Art, and to my amazement, I'm doing pretty good!

It's been 2 minutes and he hasn't pinned me yet?!

I actually get 1 point against him,

and he only beats me 3 to 1!

The crowd went wild!

I lost, but no one expected me to do so well against Art, who, by the way, went on to win 2nd place in the whole state!

Okay...you know how you can always tell when a close friend is lying to you?

It didn't take long for me to figure out that Art allowed me to do so well against him, because he was just a nice guy.

That was very cool, indeed!

My last experience that I'd like to share is of the time me and Doug started sinking in the soft mud on the banks of the Missouri River.

We were scared! We kept sinking down, down to our chests, and we thought we were goners, for sure!

Then, out of nowhere, comes this dude, dragging a big log with him!

He manages to push this heavy log over to us, close enough for us to pull ourselves out of the mud!

How thankful we were to this wonderful, thoughtful, caring man!

These events helped to shape my attitude in a way that I have really not made clear yet.

All of the kind, caring, thoughtful, helpful, beautiful souls I just mentioned, that took the time to look out for me in my youth...

were black men.

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

OUT OF THIS WORLD WEDNESDAY

All the Glirkazoids were gleed,

As they paid the tickitran,

They couldn't wait to plotter-read,

On the voyage to Ashkalan.

The childrets made a sound of wee,

When they heard the beatlebland,

They knew that very soon they'd be,

On the voyage to Ashkalan.

Their violet hearts beat rumpumpump,

When the spacedisk touched on land,

With a whoosh, a spin and a little bump,

For the voyage to Ashkalan.

Glip wiggled up the silver ramp,

He recalled his travel plan,

To take a lot of picturoos,

On the voyage to Ashkalan.

The scenery is wonderment,

He was told by his sweet Gran,

Magnicular, Spectacficent,

On the voyage to Ashkalan.

Glip's sister, Glo, was only two,

And did not understand,

How grantasticle it all would be,

On the voyage to Ashkalan.

With the speed of light they zoomed up high,

Past the worlds of Gliberzan,

The thrill, the joy, oh me, oh my,

On the voyage to Ashkalan.

Food was served in a New Glork nuck,

Gleetza in a pan,

With glushrooms from the caves of Hut,

On the voyage to Ashkalan.

Glizzard and his wife Glajune,

Saw the pyramids of Geerstan,

On their 14th second honeymoon,

On the voyage to Ashkalan.

Peace and harmony still reign,

For every creature small and grand,

On the greatest trip to fantasy,

On the voyage to Ashkalan.

BURMA SHAVE

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

12,000 VIEWS ON MY BLOG!!

What a great, awesome day of joy and symbolism!!

The number 12 is extremely significant in the bible!

The 12 tribes of Israel, the 12 Apostles, 12 baskets of leftovers when Jesus fed the 5,000, 12,000 times 12 equal the 144,000 mentioned in the book of Revelation, Jesus was 12 when he first spoke in public, and many other examples.

So, I'm of the opinion that receiving 12,000 views on my blog is a sign from above that..uh..umm..Oh, I don't know...but it's cool!

Who just asked for a speech?

Well, okay! Don't mind if I do!

I was born naked and penniless.

Even at a young age my mom could see I wanted to be a writer.

She told me I had such a desire to write, I would chew on my pencils.

The pencil lead never damaged my brain, wutsoever.

Here is my first poem that I wrote for the public domain, and it was proudly displayed in the St. Ann Elementary School newspaper:

Dogs

by Danny Maness

Dogs can be brown or black or white,

Some will bark, and some will bite,

Some will do some good tricks, too,

They will do their tricks for you,

Some dogs are brave, some dogs are true,

And that's the kind of dog for you!

When I try to comprehend the fact that 12,000 plus folks have viewed my blog I can't hardly imaginate the comprehensiveness of the whole magnificent phenomenon!

My writing is really dumb and silly, so why do people read my blog?

Wait a second, maybe they don't read my blog at all! Maybe they just click on it to make me feel better!

What if it's only one person that loves me, and keeps clicking on my blog a hundred toms a day!!

I guess that would be okay, too!

I ain't picky!

No matter.

All I know is I have 12,000 views on my blog and I'm very HACKY!!

Monday, June 17, 2013

MANESS MUSIC MONDAY

I want to share with you one of the deep mysteries of my life.

We all have them.

We wonder why we could never dance, or sing very well, play a musical instrument, or yodel like Wally Cox.

In all these instances, we can usually come up with some clues as to why we could not do these things.

Maybe our parents could not dance, sing, play a musical instrument, or yodel, and these limitations got passed down to us.

Or maybe our talents went in a different direction completely, like being able to milk yaks, mud wrestle, or do an impression of Wallace Beery.

Okay, I get all that, but puzzle me this: What if you have parents that can sing, dance, yodel, play multiple musical instruments, milk yaks, mud wrestle, and do all kinds of impressions, and you STILL can't do any of those cool things?! Hmmmm?

That's a REAL mystery and that takes us back to MY personal mystery!

I wrote one of the most beautiful, heart wrenching, thoughtful, lyrical, melodic songs of the last half of the 20th century (everybody tells me so), and it never went viral or nuttin' honey!

I lot of people thought that this song would one day become popular all over the whole wide worm, and the general population of the earth would have this wonderful song on the tip of their tongues at any given moment!

I assembled the greatest musicians I knew, the best sound technician, a dude with a beautiful voice (me) to sing it, and we all thought it wouldn't miss!

I even got a radio personality to play it on his radio show, and it STILL hasn't attained the fan crazed popularity it deserves!

Isn't that a galdurned, dyed in the wool, genuine, full fledged mystery?!

Sure it is!!

So, let's end all this mysteriousness, and make this song the classic "American standard" (isn't that a toilet?) song that it should have been many moons ago.

Mind To Mind And Heart To Heart is a song about a shy guy who loves this girl very, very much...or a shy girl who loves this dude very, very much, but can't find the worms to tell her/him.

Then, finally, he/she gets the courage to tell him/her, which makes for a soul stirring, magnificent finale!!

WOW! Are you in for a treat!

Remember, YOU are one of the building blocks that will share this song with everybody you can think of, and finally end the mystery of the cool song that never made it to the top!!

READY?

LISTEN!!!

THANKS FOR YOUR PATRONAGE!

Sunday, June 16, 2013

ST. LOUIS SUNDAY

As all of you know, I have a very vivid and strange imagination. I actually believe that if I ask you to watch the E.T. clip below, you will actually do it.

Even though you've seen this a million toms on T.V. or at the movies!

However, if you don't watch the clip, you will not really be able to get into the mood and flavor of my blog post today.

I've got faith in you dear bloggetts!

Click it on...NOW!!

Would you believe me if I told you that we did the same exact kind of bike riding in my old neighborhood that you saw in the clip?!

We could go through town faster than a car because we knew all of the shortcuts through vacant lots, ball fields, parking lots, constuction sites, and all places a car couldn't go.

The only differences were that the police weren't usually chasing us, and we didn't always have an extraterrestrial in a milk crate on our handlebars.

I had a Western Flyer bike from Western Auto that was NOT a skinny little racer with the hand brakes!

My bike was sturdy, with bigger tires and a foot brake that didn't whimp out on hard stops like some of the hand brakes would, where pieces of the rubber that squeezed the tire would break off and fall helplessly to the ground.

I always had some kind of lawn mowing job or something to make spending money, so I bought tons of accessories for my beloved bike!

Beautiful hand grips with streamers, colorful reflectors, a head light that actually worked by a little generator powered by the front tire; I would also create an occasional motor cycle sound produced by clothes pinning a baseball card to part of the frame where the spokes of the tire hit it to make the noise.

My best friend Doobie and me actually rode our bikes all the way from St. Ann to Forest Park one day, but we didn't know the shortcuts and had to ride down the sidewalks of St. Louis!

Why didn't we ride in the traffic?

You've never been to St. Louis, have you?

Anyway, they did not have the little ramp areas at the end of the blocks to smoothy cross the streets like they do today.

No, no! At the end of the blocks we had to just drop off the edge of the high curb and land (thud!!) on the street and then lift the front end of our bikes up to get up over the next curb.

We didn't notice until we got to Forest Park that the tail end of our back bumpers were bent up in the shape of a V from hitting the curbs!

We "hid" our bikes in some bushes at the park, where they could be easily seen by someone who was really interested in stealing our bikes, and we went to the zoo, the Jewel Box, the planetarium, the art museum, Jefferson Memorial; and when we returned...our bikes were still there!!

Times have changed since then.

THE END