Eskewpades

THE NEW ME-NORMAL Isolation generates new and gloomy challenges. And to fight gloom, it’s best to be bizarre. As the entire planet reinvents herself, I’m doing likewise. But, in truth, self-reinvention has been a constancy of mine all my life.   Is this my new heyday? Total solitude justifies total freedom during self-regeneration. Wife, kids, grandkids––gone. Me? Real gone. During this crisis, I’ve ensconced   myself into a cottage with two cats. Perfect companions. No negative feedback no matter how insane my choices. No one asked for this Covid-19 nightmare, but it’s here and it demands a vital period of adjustment. Luckily, I inherited a fun trait from me sweet Irish mum. She marched to the beat of her own drum and developed an obsession with reinventing herself. Like Mum, like son. Whereas most kids wanted to fit in with the crowd, I did not. Playing with my regiment of little tin soldiers when I was five, I developed a phobia. They were all dressed alike. So

SHARP AS A MITTEN FULL OF JELLO In our reckless salad days, my bride and I set up housekeeping in a sketchy neighborhood. Questionable personalities everywhere. Well after all, not every neighborhood can be abundantly blessed with people as perfect as we were. ’Twas truly a hood for strugglers. Broke most weeks. Trapped. Cursed by fate, there we resided, confined  among the “certified” in a luxurious trailer park, where the chief status symbol was new tires for the house. Call it a cosmic force thingy, call it a fact:  Kookie people gravitate toward each other. The big mystery? In the marching band of life, how did everyone but us-uns fall out of step? The bloke who dwelled two doors down with his mate, Myrtle, called himself Murpho. He played the fiddle; she played the accordion. After a sample concert, my wicked wife affectionately but secretly nicknamed the couple Sharps and Flats. Sharps and Flats shared the unique misfortune of both being nonsexual masochist