What I Have Grained

 

What I have gained in life I have

managed to lose, trade or give away.

So, that must be the meaning of

it all—life is one ongoing exchange.

I have held the precious, but it was

never mine to keep. I have tossed

the worthless onto times unrelenting

heap. I have given both equal weight.

So then today in my old age, I bargain

my time with pictures and words I have

held in reserve. And you, my friend,

are among the brave who has traveled

with me through it all such a long, long

way.

Even time shall never take that away.

I shall fondly remember until the last

of days.

                -30 -

Chris Hanch 7-28-2021

The Makeup of Me

 

Throughout my life, especially since having

grown older, some people who had known

my father have told me I resemble him a lot.

I would add that I have inherited much from

him biologically and temperamentally. At

times, I see traces of my mother in me as well.

Makes perfect sense, genetics are bound to

manifest their behavior that way. We are in

many ways biologically and behaviorally

carbon copies in the ancestral familial bloodline.

I got the clinical depression gene from both parents.

And the propensity for alcohol abuse as well. Don’t

get me wrong, there have also been some positive

factors handed down in the evolutionary process.

But one aspect we as progeny fail to reflect upon

concerning the makeup and construct of our human

nature is the random and fickle proposition of

outright, flat out “Just plain luck.”

Certainly I would have never made it thus far

having been through all I have experienced

without a heaping measure of that.

Without the hit and miss aspect of luck, odds

on, I should have either been shot or run over,

flattened and sent to an early grave more than

once in my day. And, damn, here I am! What

more need I say?

                          -30 -

Chris Hanch 7-26-2021

Waiting

In transit waiting to arrive

In the examining room

waiting in turn to be called

Waiting in line as time

ticks away

Our days are spent quietly

waiting for the right one

to come, for the wrong one

to pass away

Waiting for the dawning anew

or the twilight closing of day

Waiting for the moment

to advance or escape

Waiting to hear the words,

not you, or I do

or the dropping of the

other shoe

Waiting to be hired or fired

Waiting for the best or worst

yet to come

Waiting for the last or first

Sometimes waiting for something,

Sometimes waiting for nothing at all

Waiting, it’s a game of chance

we use to delay or play,

a game we contrive

hopeful of outlasting

or blasting and releasing

the strangle hold of time

Waiting for these words to pass,

and have a proper ending,

demanding an end to the

madness of all these lines.

            -30-

Chris Hanch 7-23-21

 

Sharing the Gift

I have this awareness, but no plan for

anytime soon. I am prepared to face

the inevitable and let this so-called

folly of life go. It is a natural inclination

as one grows old.

I see the new faces growing up all

around me, and I’d like to pass along

some of what I know.

Do what you can with what you have

been given, and then share it with

others. A wise man once told me that.

The folly part he illustrated to me

most appropriately:

Seems that two Irish friends had

bought a fifth of Cullimore Dew,

a fine Irish whiskey. They agreed

to save it, and one day crack the

seal to properly celebrate their

lifelong friendship before they died.

And so the inevitable day came

as the last man stood over his

dear friend’s death bed. And

respectfully he whispered into

his ear: Methinks the time is

nigh that we be a sharin’ 

that lovely bottle of finely

aged whiskey. “But would you

be mindin’ terribly,” he asked

his old friend, “if I’d be passin’

it through me kidneys first?”

            -30-

Chris Hanch 7-20-21

 

The Weight of Words by Volume

 

I had my son pick up some plastic tubs

from the hardware store. Good sized

these, big enough to store dozens of

binders and books filled with my essays

and poetry.

The bins I had them in before were cram-

med full, and way too cumbersome for

anyone but perhaps an Olympic weight

lifter to handle.

I’d hate to be responsible for giving one

of my kids a hernia after I’m gone. They

may feel resentful enough that I would

bequeath to them such a bulky compila-

tion of work in the first place.

Ah, but the collection is a chronicling of

my life over the preceding forty years.

That legacy has got to be worth its

weight to future generations, no?

Anyway, I distributed my volumes a

bit more sensibly in order to make

the load less unmanageable—more

bins, each weighing less than the

fewer they replaced.

A lot of work for me even shuffling all

that stuff around. The kids might just

decide to throw the whole lot out. Who

would take all that time from their lives

to wade through reams and reams of

my stuff?

Hell, the prospect of that process boggles

the mind. I look at those binders in amaze-

ment, sliding the heft of their weight across

the floor.

The longer I go on, the more I think

and say, the more weighty the crop

of my legacy I leave behind becomes

Perhaps there are some words of wisodm

to discover;many mistakes and redundan-

cies most assuredly to uncover.

It would take the combine of someone’s

mind to separate the wheat of words from

the chaff.

I wonder, on the commodites market today,

what a bushel of words goes for anyway?

Suffice it to say, some words by volume carry

a hell of a lot of weight.

                  -30-

Chris Hanch 7-19-2020 (Rewrite 7-19-21)

Games People Play

Go up to a stranger or someone you know.

Ask them to play Rock, Paper, Scissors,

and more than likely they’ll do it with you.

What for, they may ask? Ask them if they

remember who it was that first taught them

to play the game? No one alive that I know

will be able to say. It’s just one of those

hand-is-quicker-than-the-eye games humans

tend to play when there are choices to be

made. It’s all too silly I know. Wonder what

Neanderthal or Cro-Magnon played before

paper or scissors were invented? It was too

early to flip a coin—heads I win; tails you

lose. Way back when, see this, my club is

bigger than yours may have come into play.

You’ll do what I’ll tell you to do. Capisci?

For a brief moment in time the world became

a more peaceful place when paper an scissors

came to be. Then unfortunately, spears and

arrows came along, and everything went to hell.

We digress from there.

This is what happens when you have a world

of time to preoccupy the mind.

                     - 30 -

Chris Hanch 7-18-21 

Travel and Treasure

My son and his family are on a two week

vacation trip touring the Western United

States. He called me from Sacramento the

other day.

Having seen Arches National Park and

Salt Lake City in Utah, having taken in

Lake Tahoe in California, they dropped

off their daughter in Sacramento where

she’ll be living with a friend for months

to come.

He, his wife and their other daughter will

continue on to San Francisco, Portland

and Seattle. Having traveled extensively

around the country and overseas when I

was able, I envy them knowing that they

are building a scrapbook of memories

which will be valued for a lifetime.

My own personal experiences still serve

me well. And although I can no longer

physically travel about, I have my photos,

my experiences and stories to share and

hopefully inspire others. Travel expands

awareness and understanding of people,

places and ideas beyond our own reality.

We are the modern day Magellans, Marco

Polos and Lewis and Clarks, discoverers

of gold, silver, silken and spicy memories

with treasure troves of valued memories

to find.

Ah, the wonder of it all—No need for

plunder and pillage. In this day and age,

we can take photographs, buy post cards

and souvenirs to remind us.

Memories can be recorded, legacies

can be left behind. Precious gems,

metals and antiquities are only

meant to be coveted and stolen.

               -30-

Chris Hanch 7-16-2021

Weather Forecast Today

 

“Alexa, what is the weather forecast for today?”

“Currently in Kansas City it’s 74-degrees with

cloudy skies. Today, you can expect a chance of

thunderstorms with a high of 83-degrees and a

low of 72-degrees. Have a good day, Chris!”

I added the exclamation point at the end of her

response for emphasis. As far as artificial intelli-

gence goes, Alexa sounded pretty sincere to

me. More so, I’d have to say, than most real

women of average intelligence with whom

I was close in my lifetime.

                    -30-

Chris Hanch 7-15-2021

What's Next?

Sitting in my morning recliner,

old, worn-out and retired, nowhere

to go, nothing in particular to do

or be done, coffee finished for

the day, the third cigarette smoked,

74-years behind me, and the dog

in my lap lifts her head and looks

at me as if to say, what’s next?

These slow-motion crippled days

of mine usually lead to the same.

And truth be known, what’s next

was my thought not the dog’s.

I have a way of projecting blame

on others these days. I can get up

and go to the bathroom or sit and

wait until it’s damn near too late.

One and only one thing is for

sure today, history will be

recorded without the mention

of me or my dog today.

That leaves what’s next for me

is either to delay the enevitable

or muster enough gumption to

to get off my lazy ass and go pee.

               - 30-

Chris Hanch 7-14-2021 

My Place to Stay

 

Suffice it to say,

I do not have

a leg up on you.

With a painful

arthritic hip

I can no longer

lift my leg

high enough

to tie my shoe.

One saving grace,

I must say,

there is no need

for me to wear

shoes anyway.

I am glued

stationary to

my recliner.

It is there

I am inclined

to spend

my barefoot days.

         - 30-

Chris Hanch 7-13-2021

Friends in Passing

Facebook claims I have friends. Friends,

I say? Casual, electronically connected

acquaintances, perhaps. What else can I

say about folks I have never met face-

to-face.

Granted some I have met personally,

and some with whom I can relate are

more than worthy of my friendship.

I can certainly agree with that.

Another internet site to which I belong

claims that I have “followers.” Makes

me sound like Jesus Christ or Jim Jones.

I cannot abide either of those.

Some of you may choose to tag along

for a spell, but followers indicates I am

a leader and have something of value

to share. I would offer fair warning—

should I dispense free advice, turn

around and walk away. Taking my

own advice has at times lead to many

a miserable mistake.

Stand aside, I say, and lend me an ear

if you will, give me a glancing eye at

70-miles per hour passing by. On any

given day, as a fellow traveler, I may

afford you the same.

Consider me a series of roadside Burma

Shave Signs with a row of postings you

review in passing now and again ...

- 30-

Chris Hanch 7-12-2021 

 

Projection

 

Got to thinking again. I say again because

my thoughts have gotten me into trouble

before

Anyway, what the hell...had I been born

a hundred years before I was born, I

wouldn’t have to concern myself with the

likes of Donald J. Trump, Kevin McCarthy

and Mitch McConnell.

I wouldn’t have to worry about the Corona

Virus, the mass gun murders, rogue cops

and global warming.

Yes, there were bad guys, guns and dan-

gerous things happening a hundred years

before my birth. One just didn’t hear as

much about such things as often back then.

There was no Internet, Twitter, TV and

myriad other broadcasts flooding the

airwaves and inundating the brain.

One could float his dingy or canoe on

the lake of tranquility and drift peacefully

away into his days of old age.

I try to focus on the positive these days,

but the body is weak and fragile and the

mind is thusly geared the same way.

I could have not been born at all in which

case nothing ventured, nothing gained. Or

my life may have arrived a hundred years

too late, when things could have progressed

to be a hell of a lot worse.

Come to think of it, I’m damn near 75, and

a hundred years either way is not really that

great. Now a thousand years, with that big

a spread I could really speculate and project

a hell of a lot more.

Go big or go home. Throughout history,

folks have said that a lot even though

very few ever do.

                - 30-

Chris Hanch 7-11-2021