Tag Archives: Billy Bowles

A Father’s Day Letter to a Child I Never Had

 

These are the olden days
These are the golden days
These are the days that we get
For time is a con
Yesterday’s gone
And tomorrow is simply a bet

 

Why is life such a leadfoot?

We speed the plows of our world until the only thing we are maintaining is velocity. The momentum of Things eclipses the meaning of them. We mock Sisyfus in the great boulder shoulder. 

We know to watch for this, of course. We know the lines by heart, the part by rote drumbeat: Smell the roses, live the moment, be thankful for receiving more todays than yesterdays. Or tomorrows.

Yet we press the gas. And blur the background. And grind in the gnash.

How do we stop it? Maybe the first step is recognizing it.

Ask yourself this: What was the highlight of today? Every day has one, if only that it gave us another.

But the question, when asked honestly, can be tricky. And if it’s tough coming up with an answer you believe, you may want to check your speed.

When that question is no longer difficult, you’ll know you’re maintaining a healthy distance.

Which is this:

On the bumper and in the mirror, where today is closer than it appears.

Look, Up in the Sky…

 

 

Dear Uncle Guy,

How’s heaven?

Has Dad cussed out Jesus yet? Broken the scoop about what a fraud the boss is?

I’ve been thinking about you both a lot lately.

I still don’t know why I inherited your first name. Your relationship with Dad seemed so strained, separated by more than a decade and generation. Maybe he revered your World War II legend, created when you lost an eye in that explosion off Okinawa. He would often recall taking home to his folks the letter that you were injured. There was a stubborn love there, which I guess also is an inherited family trait.

Anyway, you would be tickled by all the fuss recently over Superman. Remember how you would tell me and sis — tykes both — that you were Superman? To go to the bathroom window (always at night, for some reason) and look for you to fly across the backyard? To look for the cape and big red S?

superguy

How sis and I would be cautiously skeptical? In truth, I always kind of believed it, but was too stubborn to admit it.

There’s been a lot of fuss over Superman lately. He’s got a new movie, versus Batman, that is lighting up the box office charts. The old films are running all over cable.

You probably wouldn’t like the recent movies. For one, they’re in color. Two, they lack the original actor, George Reeves, who always looked a lot like you. george-reeves-05

But check out the photo on top of this post. Warner Bros. asked me to host the press launch of the new film.

Lower left corner. It hit the wires recently.

Well goddamn (sorry; I know you hated when people swore, but that was Dad’s favorite cuss word, another inheritance of mine).

You and Dad were right.

You do wear the emblem.