LEMONHEAD THE SECOND: ANOTHER CHILDHOOD REFLECTION, CRISPED

When I was a child, it was not too terribly uncommon for grown ups to say “You must stop to smell the roses”–I always ignored them, can you blame me? Flowers, and the smelling of flowers, was an activity suited for girls; the pleasures of stealing and the quick getaway were more suited for boys. Especially little boys like me. You know, hooligans.

And I was just such a boy. My activities included but were not limited to stealing candy from the 5 & 10 store, to wit: Pixie Sticks, Twizzlers, Atomic Fireballs, Nil-L-Nips, Slo-Poks, Mary Janes, Butterum, Teaberry and Lemonheads. This activity, stealing, was both deeply satisfying and spiritually enriching, certainly every bit as enriching as smelling some dumb rose bush. Besides, all the grown ups who told me to stop and smell the roses and go to school and study hard and don’t play with your food and be sure to eat all your liverwurst and flush the toilet and don’t steal or hurt anybody especially Timmy because all of these things would show the world that I was a bad boy and should roast in Hell are now dead. And where is Timmy now? Timmy is *finis* now. And thus their message has lost its poignancy. And even though the 5 & 10 cent store had a rose bush outside and the roses were quite fragrant indeed, but I often ignored them because as I left the store and crossed the street, carefully looking both ways, I could see, as plain as day, naked ladies dancing and men shooting cannons into the sky as they sang The Internationale very loudly on the other side of the street; it was enchanting. Candy, thieving, naked ladies, cannons, loud noises and communism, I say yes; fragrant roses, liverwurst, Timmy, I say no, and if so, only briefly and in passing, and/or enroute to other things on the other side, over there.

Yet now I think, if only I had listened to them then–things would be so different today. Well, not really. for I realize now that they were speaking, then, in metaphor, and the rose bushes that lined the streets of my childhood near the 5 & 10 would not have held the key to a more inspired destiny. But then again–I am not one to shy away from metaphor, either. My Atomic Fireballs? Metaphor. Nik-L-Nips? Metaphor. Mary Janes, Butterum? Ditto. Why, even Lemonheads. In fact, it is all metaphor, meticulously chosen and crafted all, especially the 5 & 10, and except for the naked ladies and the cannons, which were real, in my dreams then, as they are, I think, today.

Still, I do hope that the grown ups of my past stopped and smelled the roses in some way or other as they suggested, as I hope the grown-ups of today do, too. But grown-ups rarely smell anything good; just like they say that you should get plenty of exercise, when they really mean that YOU should get plenty of exercise. THEY are comfortable in the hammock, under a lazy sun, drinking iced tea, with a sprig of mint in it. It’s like a metaphor–"where the sprig ends, and the mint begins"–that is what you will find there. You don’t even have to look.

all artwork, except likenesses of Lyndon B. Johnson, by Crispy Flotilla ® 2006