Even Lincoln's Dissolving

 

Virus

Part 24 of 30

We know from the news on the current virus that there’s apparently no one wholly immune to it. But of course that doesn’t mean all is quite lost yet. You can get it and hope with all your might that someone just now -- preferably in your town, preferably on your block -- has come up with the antidote or cure.

The way my life goes, that never happens, but anyone else could be the first. You might remember, it seems like I blogged about it last year about this time, how I had a flat tire on the interstate. I felt the tire going rickety split and next thing I was on a particularly unforgiving narrow strip of blacktop about a mile from the next exit. I’m often afraid that’s how it’d be if I caught the virus; just my luck I'd be sidelined only to be passed by and nearly run over in the wild commotion.

Of course I have friends. And they were all very sympathetic to me when they heard what had happened. One especially helpful person said she had me in her prayers, even though the incident was past when I wrote about it from home. Still, it’s the thought that counts, and there’s no reason to open new wounds by scolding her for her callous misplacement of timing. I clearly indicated it was a past tense situation. So she’s still a good friend. But friends can’t be everywhere at once. And in that case, sidelined as I was on the interstate without notice, naturally none of them were there to help. I just don’t want that to happen with the virus.

The virus doesn’t care if you’re me, you, the last Nobel winner, the last Pulitzer Prize winner, or Moe, Larry, or Curly Joe. The virus is like the plagues of Israel, except it’s not looking for blood on your door before turning away. The virus doesn’t take breaks, coffee breaks, doesn’t stretch out in the bathtub in a hot bath, isn’t blackmailed or influenced by payoffs or bribery. It’s a steamroller, baby, guaranteed to blow your mind. Then when your mind’s blown, and you’re daydreaming all kinds of colors, visions, with such reality that you’re reaching out to them like treats from your kindly grandpa on your birthday, only to be clawed across the face by a rude viral swipe and left on the floor steaming, foaming at the mouth, and spinning in circles. Finally, you’re able to stand one last time, writhing against the wall, until you collapse and turn into a puddle of psychedelic foam, everything once straight and normal now seething and apparently distended.

Our illustration of Abraham Lincoln -- born solely to become my personal spirit animal -- is to portray this sad truth. You can be the best person in the world, or you can be half-ass, or you can be whomever-the-current president is, the virus doesn’t care. Check out his arms, the molecules are crazy, although the colors have a certain beauty; regardless, none of it bodes well for his health or future. And I might need a new spirit animal.

Abe Lincoln vs Guidance Counselors

No. 14 of 30 -- Guidance Counselor series

I’ve long claimed Abraham Lincoln as my spirit animal. And in spite of the pathetic pleas of those who think they know him better — scholars, historians, and other self-appointed busybodies who never even met the man — I’ll keep right on believing and living in strength through that truth.

Like Lincoln, I’m a person of many dreams. I’ve been dreaming since I was a kid and I believe in dreams. Many are scary, doubts whether I will withstand the challenges of the future, etc. But a lot of my fears I’ve put away, such as the childhood nightmares of Judgment Day. They pop up maybe weekly, but a few good screams and a tiny bit of crawling the walls and it's all over. That’s on my parents, of course, for taking me to church every time the doors were open. It might’ve stunted my childhood, but in a way I’m happy for it: It's a killer excuse for anything that goes wrong.

I used to wander in the snow like in the picture and think, think, think. Some very practical things, such as “What should I do about these boots, so kids won’t make fun of me for having big clodhoppers?” I remember once taking them off and slogging the rest of the way to school in Hush Puppies, which were ruined by the snow. The lesson wasn’t to quit worrying about what kids would think, but hope Mom found better boots.

All the time I was thinking, huffing and puffing: Would I die in the snow? Would class be OK? Would I be able to skate by another year, then be promoted? What would it be like in high school, when I’d be faced with all sorts of things — higher learning, dissecting frogs? I could only imagine it as a kid. I imagined the older kids at school towering over me. They seemed to be laughing, not crying. So whatever was to come, I’d have to manage.

Then high school had a lot of downsides, of course, really apparent when the guidance counselor showed his ugly head. But he had to earn his bread like everyone, meaning, when you’re guidance counselor you have to instill in kids a terrible fear of the future. Always hinting they’ll never make it unless... And then you get the scary bully tactics, laced with criticism, taking advantage of your innocence. “There are those who make it, then there's the vast majority who fall dead on the way.” Which finally explained the ditches full of corpses every time I went to town.

Is that any way to do education? It is if the goal is to keep one-time barber-college, wrestling-coach wannabes who settle for counseling and guiding students with barely five cents worth of personal decency to rub together employed. My big problem wasn’t native ability and lack of drive, but someone to walk beside me and not to kick me in the snow when the bell was about to ring.

So Abraham Lincoln towers above, whom -- if my vast historical knowledge still holds true to the facts and isn’t touched with Alzheimer’s Blessing, sweet forgetfulness, and a soon sinking into insentience and a calling home by the Lord of Judgment Day that I glimpsed so long ago -- was the 16th president. Which rankles everyone a bit that he’s so far down the list when we celebrate his day and Washington’s like they were contemporaries. Spoiler alert, Washington was already dead and moldering before Lincoln's dad took it out!

But the guidance counselor and I, though from different generations, were contemporaries. And my contempt for him to this day proves it. I’m even somewhat provoked right this minute, even though that stale dude's been dead these many years, to walk out in the snow right now, if we had any, and call out to the skies, “What’ve you got, Guidance Fool!? Something better than Lincoln?!”

Picking My Spirit Animal

No. 12 of 31 -- Thermometer series

Dr. Vector is an absolute dear. He went to school somewhere, a bunch of places, and now he’s helping me. I would adore having the diplomas he's got on the wall. I actually have a few -- a guy I know will print what you need. In the actual school I was average and sometimes below-average, but I think I got smarter with experience. I don’t keep my diplomas on the wall, though, since I technically still owe the guy around $50, and we had a fight, and I hate remembering him.

But I did take classes. One of my best memories of academia was listening to a guy in Speech class. In citing the various "Types of Breath," he listed Dog Breath and Italian Breath, which stuck with me. If that was education, I was a sponge. If I never learned anything else, that was worth the price of tuition, although I’m pretty sure that guy never got a diploma, nor did I from that particular place. The college closed down, packed up, and moved west, which is the first time I ever heard of that.

But that's all ancient history, this is Dr. Vector’s day! Time for his breath to shine. I just look at him and know he's special. I love a guy like him, a professional. Having all the confidence in the world, and mysterious enough in his training and attitude, there doesn’t appear to be a thing he doesn’t know. Any subject, and with pure insight into your psyche, the soul...

I was sitting in the chair, focused on the sound of my own breath, focused without being focused, honing in on the sound without making a sound, and Dr. Vector came up from behind and lightly massaged my shoulders. His hands melded with my shoulders, like there was no end of me or beginning of him. He’s fantastic, even dreamy, except for one thing: a dental plate that's fully exposed, making true the old saw, “Into every life, a little rain must fall.” His omniscience, though, that has to be the main thing. And that melding, always that amazing melding...

It turned out, too, with Dr. Vector’s indispensable assistance, I would discover my spirit animal. Something to celebrate! Would it be the Rooster as he seemed to hint? It could’ve been. But no, no, no, it wasn’t the Rooster or any chicken. It was Abraham Lincoln, my favorite president of all the presidents I know anything about. And I’m not entirely clear why I like him, except for what they taught us in school, that he was just like us, only better. How he worked his way up from ignorance to knowledge, a child studying at night by firelight, a man splitting rails by day, debating the pants off people, and being charismatic despite the sour look, his hat like a smokestack, and the circumstances of his presidency, the Civil War and a country teetering on the edge of serious trauma.

So until I see a different therapist -- and there's no plans to ditch Vector -- Abraham Lincoln is my spirit animal, winning out over the chicken by only an inch of his hat. The rooster tried to match Lincoln's height, wisely choosing a large barrel for heft, which in the end only showcased Lincoln's greater wisdom in wearing hats in a different zip code from his head.

Spirit animal in place, I shall march boldly on in the thermometer drive for the blog! Solemnly vowing that everything I do will be in accordance with proper Lincoln wisdom and intelligence. Knowing that as I give my all, Lincoln will be there to guide me, assisted by the Rooster, who according to the Chinese restaurant has his own year as the cycles spin silently along.