reality bites

Okay, so like people in and around Edinburgh know all about the duo of infamous (love that word) body "relocators" Burke and Hare and the creator of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle and thank you for clearing up the mess I made of the tale/history of them yesterday and for those of you who have never made the trip to Edinburgh, you need to go; but not during the "Fringe Festival" if you want my advice - oh man -

I know today is "Flower Friday" but alas and forlorn, not a petal in sight, actually that's not actually true, but photogenic flowers, nah, this is Coventry you know and I HAD life crap to take care of today.

The photo as you may recognize is a - soon to be - nostalgic relic of a time gone by, and if I may be allowed, I want to lament its passing. I may be as well a "passing relic" I hasten to add, as I find myself one of the last people on earth, even in "deepest, darkest" Africa without a 'mobile phone'

You see, back when I was "wet-behind-the-ears' the phone booth was my principal connection to my parents. When I was in school in Kansas, I spent many a night crying into the receiver of the booth on the corner, to my mom back home in Memphis, relating to her my loneliness and misery and heartache from being in such a foreign place with so many "white" people with their strange accents, clothes and ways of life.

I survived Kansas mostly, but not entirely truth be told, by having ready access to that phone booth on the corner, where I deposited two quarters and dialed the ten digits that I knew would result in my mother's voice, giving me solace and words of encouragement, allowing me to appreciate the fact that I deserved to be there, not because President Johnson (no relation) said so, but because my brain and class work said so

I love the University of Kansas, love it to death, it's not Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Oxford or Cambridge, but it's my alma mater and that makes it special to me. That and that phone booth on the corner of Tennessee and Iowa and the lady on the other end of the line.

(Gawd, where the hell is this going you might be asking: good question I respond)

I noticed the number of blips today referencing breast cancer and the need for screening and donations and I offer my endorsement to the sentiment and ask that you please get checked (men as well as women) at your earliest convenience.

My mother passed ten years ago tomorrow from breast cancer and the "person to whom I'm related by marriage" is a five year survivor and I have no idea what would become of me if She too succumbed due to negligence in regards to annual checkups

(I realize that sometimes my blips are like from 'left-field' and make no sense what-so-ever, sorry, I just get caught up in streams of consciousness)