a pinch of this
a dash of that
roll ‘em roll ‘em
punch ‘em punch ‘em
put ‘em in the pan
and simmer slowly
over time
a sweet and sour concoction
this biological stew
ancestral hand-me-down
the hereditary DNA
male and female
an amalgamated analogy
this aromatic
sumptuous and savory
miraculous potpourri
the mankind recipe
of you and me
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Chris Hanch 2-28-2023
“I damn well guarantee, nine times out of ten, it’s bound to work.
You’ve got the sucker on the hook.” That’s pretty much what the
training guy told me and the other salesmen in our class that day.
Kansas City Star, that’s what I are. That famous Roger Miller song
of the 1970s played on my car radio the first day I went to work
as a display advertising salesman for that acclaimed Midwestern
newspaper.
The instructor, hired by the paper to increase sales and production
from their reps, was a high pressure tactician with an array of
deceptive shyster practices in his repertoire.
“When you’ve finish your pitch to businesses extolling the benefits
of newspaper display advertising as the optimum and lucrative
method to attract prospective customers to buy their products and
services, look them in the eye with a confident and reassuring
intensity. And holding the contract in one hand, present them with
a pen outstretched in your other hand.
Their instinctive inclination is to accept the offering, and then they are
prompted to act, signing their contract to buy. Don’t take no for an
answer. Keep pushing that pen in their face. Close the damn deal,
signed, sealed, and delivered!”
Well, for me that was a nervously sweaty proposition. I was not
used to pushing my will on anyone especially trying to convince
a hesitant customer to spent some of his profits on the “maybe”
possibilities of advertising.
But this was the job which my employer not only expected,
but demanded results from me. Sales and profit were the sole
objectives here.
So, off I went that day determined yet a bit nervous about my
first attempt. It was a local car dealership, AMC Rambler as I
recall (at the time, not one of the top automotive companies
in the industry.)
Upon my arrival at the dealership, I identified myself to the
lady in the lobby and asked to see the person in charge of
advertising who happened to also be the owner of the estab-
lishment. I waited in the showroom, and in a few minutes
he appeared (not congenially smiling either as he would have
had I been a customer rather than a newsprint salesman).
His look, I surmised, told me intuitively that he had better
things to do with his time and money. Nonetheless,
we shook hands and I began my spiel, showing him
examples of display ads from some of his successful
competitors.
At the finish, my outstretched pen in hand was a no go.
With arms firmly folded across his chest, he roundly
rejected my proposal telling me business industry-wide
was in slumping times.
His negative demeanor convinced me to withdrawal.
And with my tail between my legs, so to speak, I left
empty handed.
It was just my luck. I had run into the one and only
guy in this whole stinking town who “wasn’t buying it.”
I got that one in ten chance that asshole trainer had
talked about earlier that day. What, I wondered, were
the odds of that?
It was then it struck me, I had better look for a different
profession, being skeptical of any wise guys who tried to
hand me a pen. Perhaps the next time I would take Roger
Miller’s musical hit career path as my theme song—
“Trailers for sale or rent, rooms to let 50-cents…
I’m the King of the Road.”
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Chris Hanch 2-27-2023
Along the coastline of my mind
brain waves are crashing, an
unrelenting activity nature conferred
upon me—seventy-five years at sea.
Night and day, my thoughts sail the
waves, high tide and low, the ebb
and flow of what I do and have yet
to know, my ship run aground now
and then.
And yet I sail in storm and fair,
on occasion dead in still waters,
doldrums there. A light, salty
breeze wafts over me.
In storm and calm, I continue on,
navigating the universal sea of my
own turmoil and tranquility. Ahoy,
Matey, welcome aboard. Avast ye,
blimey, it’s only me.
-30-
Chris Hanch 2-6-2320
Growing up, my mother and father smoked,
mother cigarettes, father a pipe and cigarettes.
Historically, before me, Mark Twain, Winston
Churchill, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt
smoked a lot.
Back in 1959 when I was 12-years old,
Ronnie Barker, a friend of mine, gave me
my first cigarette spawning a habit from
which I have continued for some 63-years.
Bad news for all of us, medically speaking,
yes; an integral part of my pleasurable
existence, most certainly. Am I condoning
a habit which the Surgeon General and so
many other folks have reviled and rebuked?
No, I don’t.
However, for many, the celebrated and
common folks alike, smoking has been
as necessary to their lives as breathing
a purer and fresher air. For so many,
smoking provides stress relief and an
unadulterated accommodating pleasure.
My nurses and doctors no longer ask
me if I’d like to quit? Given my record
of denial they know as much as I do—
At age 75, I’m living on borrowed time
anyway. Might as well enjoy the time I
have left.
I like smoking and I have already outlived
my smoking predecessors and so many more
non-smokers, those who have quit or never
indulged.
I fondly hearken back to my Army days of the
early ‘60s when our drill sergeant gave us a break,
telling us, “Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.” Even
though cigarette costs have skyrocketed from
25-cents a pack to over 5-dollars, I can still
comfortably afford to buy my own. Besides,
Who in hell wants to live to be 85 or 90 in these
bat-shit crazy days anyway?
-30-
Chris Hanch 2-24-2023
Today is Thursday, and I surmise that tomorrow
will arrive on time. Not expecting anything special,
just content on stating facts—as life goes, one thing
follows another.
As we grow to learn these patterns in life, we can
become worried or confidently reassured with our
expectations in our day-to-day lives.
As a child (brought up in the fifties as a Catholic),
I could expect either fish or pasta for dinner on
Fridays. As a meat lover, I was not excited about
my meatless Friday meals. But I was told I faced
the wrath of God and my mom, having to eat
that which was on my plate.
Patterns, we all learn to rely or abhor them as
they affect us every day. Lots of them are handed
down to us from our caveman days.
Patterns in most cases can be relied upon for our
survival as a species—Spring and summer follow
fall and winter. Farmers know when to plant and
harvest crops.
As a child, I learned a sound spanking would
surely follow disobeying my parents. I had my
choice, however, in taking my chances on being
found out as guilty.
Why, many of the sciences and discoveries are
based on patterns, gravity and light depending
on certain conditions behave in predictable ways.
So, you may be asking, where does this diatribe
of mine lead? Many of you who know me person-
ally understand that I have reached the ripe old
age where it is no longer likely that I am working
on a thesis for a masters or doctorate degree.
I still do function on patterns which help me to
stay alive. Abstaining from meat on Fridays
is no longer required. At age seventy-five, parental
corporal punishment for breaking many patterns
and rules no longer applies.
These days, Friday generally follows Thursday, and
should I awaken alive to yet another day, time will
tell. The prospects of continued patterns, however,
grow less and less each passing day. As for me and
tomorrow, why we’ll just have to wait and see?
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Chris Hanch 2-23-2030
We were born this way, vulnerable.
We had no way of knowing then,
the needs and dangers life would bring.
Vulnerable yet fortunate were so
many of us born into this world with
responsible parents or caretakers.
As we grew we learned what we needed
to do to survive and became able to fend
off and maintain ourselves in appropriate
and fundamental ways.
Still, we needed the help of others
and good fortune to maintain. Good
medical care, social assistance,
educators, clergy and a wide variety
of professionals and family to assist
and support us and our needs.
Yet, whether aware or unmindful of
many inadequacies and difficulties
throughout our lives, we remained
vulnerable.
Accidents, disease, natural calamities,
war, crime, personal losses, old age and
disabilities, there are myriad misfortunes
which may account for our vulnerability.
Consider the recent earthquake which
killed to date nearly 50,000 unsuspecting
victims in Turkey and Syria. Like the mass
extinction event which did in the dinosaurs
millions of years ago, no one saw the
asteroid coming.
As Mark Twain once said when accounting
for the passing of other authors of his time
“...and I’m not feeling so well myself.”
Whether aware of it or not, vulnerability.
You’re never too young or old to play the
ubiquitous dodgeball game of a lifetime.
-30-
Chris Hanch 2-22-23
Jesus Christ!
For Christ’s sake!
Why is it
should I hear
those cries out loud,
I turn around
to see?
Likely, someone
has either smashed
their finger
with a hammer,
or has seen
something
ungodly
and is surprised
or amazed.
Surely they are
not calling me out
by name
for I do not resemble
him even from afar
or behind.
I have never
worked a miracle
for I have not
been favorably
endowed with
such super human
abilities.
Jesus Christ!
He was a good man
the Bible claims.
You never hear someone
yell out, Holy Buddha,
Good Yahweh or
for Mohamed’s sake!
Jesus Christ!
I am no longer
a believer in miracles.
And Lord knows
that could never be me.
I’ve had a few
rebirths figuratively
in my lifetime
here on Earth,
and heaven knows,
I have tried at times
to lead a better life.
But it turns out
the world and mankind
are still one hell of a mess.
-30-
Chris Hanch 2-21-2030
Dogged determination.
a phrase used to
describe a fox scratching
and pawing its way into
the hen house.
Dogged determination.
The running back
zig-zagging his way
through linemen and
the secondary to make
his way into the end zone.
Dogged determination.
The monkey pounding
a shell against a stone
to release the delightful
nut inside.
Dogged determination.
An infant reaching for
the cookie jar precariously
placed on the counter above;
the eagle swooping into
the river to snatch its prey;
the ball player waiting patiently
for the right pitch to cross
the plate;
the cicada calling out in autumn
to attract a suitable mate.
Dogged Determination.
Against all odds,
the peace-loving Ukrainians
defending their homeland from
the larger Russian invaders.
Dogged determination—
Women of Iran protesting
for their rights and equality
denied by a ruling male chauvinist
Islamic theocracy.
Dogged determination,
an action needed every day
in a million or more
different ways.
-30-
Chris Hanch 2-19-2023
Seventy-six is coming up for me in April.
Looked at newborn pictures on Facebook
recently and I find it hard to believe I have
come from that to this. Oh, the long winding
road from there to here.
I understand why folks my age rarely parent
children in their senior years. We have all we
can do to manage our own failing conditions,
waning tolerance and and patience notwith-
standing. From the pre-verbal state of depen-
dency to the elderly state of ineptitude and
incontinence, the human life cycle is a com-
plex journey to say the least.
Don’t get me wrong, some folks will claim
they have had an easy peasy time of it while
others have faced myriad troubles and prob-
lems to overcome. Still others never make
it very far.
I learned my ABCs, never mastered math,
got my degrees on the street of hard knocks.
I was fortunate enough to have been given
some natural talents which enabled me to
subsist adequately.
If given the opportunity to do it all over
again or live to be one-hundred would I?
Hell no! As for the promise or likelihood
of hereafter’s heaven or hell, I’d say, been
there done that already in my lifetime here
on Earth.
A god and a devil had a role to play in the
psychological make-up of me. And after
having learned my ABCs, I somehow grew
to manage and fulfill all of my basic needs.
No resting in peace is allowed after death,
so I get all I can while still alive.
-30-
Chris Hanch 2-18-2023
