No Guarantees

 

Slipshod, haphazard, hit-

and-miss at best, this body

given me never came with

any guarantees.

But come on now, folks, for

all the starts and stops one

is expected to generate in a

lifetime, surely reliability

should be a given.

You take Michael Jordan,

Ted Williams, Mohammad

Ali, John Wayne, Fred Astaire

and Ginger Rogers, Serena

Williams and the like, physi-

cally they performed flaw-

lessly in the prime of their

lives while I schlep around

with a hitch in my get-along

way too early on.

Marlon Brando as Terry Malloy

in On the Waterfront said it best:

“I could a been a contender; I

could a been somebody...” And

look at poor Terry, he wound up

with a one-way ticket to Palookaville.

Come to think of it, as the world of

humanity slips in and out of gear

and limps haplessly home with

astonishing incompetency, I suppose

things could have been a whole hell

of a lot worse for me.

Besides, the thought and sound of

Palookaville does make me chortle

with a measure of gratitude. Being

punch-drunk on occasion is one of

the side-effects with which I

must deal.

               -30-

Chris Hanch 11-18-2020