Townes far away

I spent the morning dreaming of Townes,
who lived.
His life, while sad, in a thousand ways,
attested this.
Not in the least Existential,
a living paradox.

You were of bars, of gambling, of women,
of song.
Money thrown in the wind for your own
euthanasia.
Every moment recorded in the minds
of your lovers.

Of the guns that you held, bang, bang, bang,
click!
You were a tortured man, not only your clothes lost
to gambling.
A jacket, soft and leather given to you by
Bojangles, also gone.

Your tunes and books, shared with disciples.
Oh! How they followed.
They knew that they could not attain what you had
and gave away.
But you were haunted by this gift of poetry and lyrics
and sound.

The music came to you in dreams and it
was real.
But you wanted to push it away, to exist
any other way.
Darling, darling Townes, I could hold you for a night
or maybe longer.

But then there is JT, William, Katie Bell who
watched you,
on road to your death, bumpy still consistently
living.
Then you forgot the lyrics and
you were gone.

How you died, so publically, and painfully
Without humiliation
While we stood by watching and we were
humiliated for you…
But how does the genius escape?
Themselves.

We sit, still, listening to the music
your voice.
We mourn you and dream of you, it is
your legacy.
We struggle to understand the paradox
of you.

You are, of Townes far away, frequently visited
rarely understood.
You are loved nonetheless, for your honesty
your purity.
You are missed, though you were never fully grasped
by us all.

Sally’s Peas

Sally’s peas, had allergies!
So when she ate them,
they made her sneeze!
Sally hid them,
under her knees!
This made her little dog,
really pleased!
Little dogs love,
allergic peas.
They scare away
allergic fleas!

The Dream

When she met her husband, she could hardly believe her good fortune! It was almost as if the things she had been long wishing for, had somehow stuck together. At 33, she had dated but without fail the men who sat across the table from her had let her down. A butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker, each as relentlessly hopeless as the last. A long list of exceptions. Why nots. She had long started thinking herself to be a freak magnet and thus, when he entered her life she thought he was only a figment of her imagination.
He had walked in, a tourist in the town where she was working, registering to the hotel, he pulled out his ID. And she, like always, attracted to the shy sort, loving the ease to which she could make them red, flirted outrageously, simply to watch him blush. To her surprise, he with a brain as big as the country where he came from, retorted. She blushed instead. She was refreshed, embarrassed and she without thinking reached across the counter and touched his lapel. Green, bumpy, unusual, she thought him immediately interesting. They locked eyes, and she knew then, already, that she would marry him.
They spoke, the business of registration, with the edge of attraction. It was a sharp knife cutting through the formality of the process, the chasm was obvious.
He turned to leave and she admired him. His little boy legs and tight behind, she was highly attracted. He looked back, briefly as she watched in awe of him. They smiled. She noted his perfect teeth, like little white soldiers in a conforming row, broad, defending his soft insides.
She worked that day, as always, but distractedly thinking about this unique man who seemed to come from something that she conjured. Then when she saw him later, knew he would be there (she thought) checking in with the hotel computer, took a break to seek him. He was not, as she expected. She searched to no avail when suddenly on the way back to her post, they literally bumped into one another taking a close corner. “Hi,” she said, “I was looking for you”. He looked at her and said “I know”.

They met that day after she finished work. It was as she imagined, they had so much to talk about; he, smart, interesting, travelled. Leaning to the political left; they agreed on nearly everything and what they did not agree on they could laugh off, argue, sway, they danced like this all night in each other’s thoughts. Like the man who she long dreamed of, they found that they wanted the same things in life. They expected a certain lifestyle, had good work ethics, and he understood intrinsically all the things that she wanted/needed him to. She was in love with this dream, that had somehow walked right up to her desk from thousands of miles away.
They walked that night, ate, drank, paced the park, sat on the swings and watched the sun come up over the horizon and had by that time planned their life together.
The details would be difficult, so they forgot them then. He on side of the planet where people walk upside-down and she on the polar opposite. A different language, a different culture, thousands of miles; these all remained must since they knew, both of them, that there was will and that they would find a way.
He left that day. At ten am. She watched his black car pull away until it became as small as a dot at the end of a sentence.

Stephen Sands

Stephen is the son of Alfred and Gail Sands Of Sunbury Ontario – I believe that Alfred would be a second cousin of my grandmother, Mabel Elizabeth Moreland. He is my cousin and I like him. I like him very well, and I am proud of my relation to him.

Stephen is not the only child in his family. His oldest brother Rickey who has special needs – he was oxygen deprived at birth, as I heard it. Stephen has a way with Rickey, who in many ways is a child in a man’s body but gentle and funny. I suppose he is so comical and cute because he has always been treated with patience. Stephen always got Rickey, understands him and is good to him. Stephen always has a charming story to tell me about Rickey and his latest imaginary accomplishment when I see him, which is not often enough! Stephen loves Rickey and unlike many men, can say so without ever thinking it funny, like many men would. Stephen always stood out like that!
Stephen has always been sensitive, but not in a girly way, the kind of guy that looks you in the eye, and who is so well liked that he could hang around with his mentally handicapped brother and expect never to face any ridicule for it, might have even fought to protect his brother. Probably did, from time to time. He is a man’s man but also the sort that women enjoy being around too.
Stephen is very close to his family. He and his wife Heather (Harris) have a place and have lived next door to his parents on the stagecoach road (Montreal Street) towards Kingston, past the Washburn Road on the left, when you come from my home-farm. Stephen is a mechanic who runs his very successful business at home. He has three children. Two of them are really young and cute as buttons and an older son from an earlier marriage who is about 25 but living at home still. He looks a lot like Steve and is well liked too, just like his dad. They are all nice kids I have heard. I guess it would be expected, since they always had a great dad and Heather is a good mom too, so overall they have been lucky!
People who moved to town would make the drive to Sunbury to have their car looked at, because they knew Stephen tells the truth about what is going on. Yes, you can trust Stephen with your car, and your money too! An honest, family man, is how one would best describe Stephen.
Stephen has a brother named Brian who I don’t really know. He was that much older than me and probably away from home by the time that my memories come in. Our cousin Tracey Sands (Miller) reminded me about him, but I still, sadly can’t put a face to his name and I feel sad about that, because I understand that they have been very close as adults, like best friends! The Sands family is like that! Tight! Wonderful! Really good people.
Stephen’s sister Kathy, I think would be about ten years older than me… she was, and still is, as as nice as hell, and a very pretty girl too. She looks just like the actress who played Daisy Duke in the Dukes of Hazzard – and I think that this propelled Stephen into the career of mechanics – when he was a young teen his brother Robin bought, restored and detailed a car so that it was exactly like the car that the Duke boys drove… “The General Lee”… If you saw this car driving around Sunbury in the 1980’s you will remember Stephen’s smiling face – a slight, young, man with silky blond hair always hanging in his sparkling blue eyes. He is always smiling, always friendly, laughing, always honest and always a good person for as long as I recall him… which is about as far back as my memories go.

He also has a brother Robin who was very close to him – the two were virtually inseparable as youth – Robin, more from the Sands side of the family was courser in feature, coloring and hair but the two were obviously great fans of the other. I don’t know who is the older, and who is the younger, of the two boys – they were so much together, it is hard to recall them as separate. Both of them drove old General Lee around interchangeably. Both of the boys always had a pretty girl on their arm and both of them well liked, good ball players, hockey players, people. Nice kids who grew up to be nice men.

Stephen’s last sibling is my girlfriend/cousin Patricia – who everyone still refers to as “Poo” to this day – after Pebbly-poo on the Flintstones. She, the baby by a few years, was, and still remains the cute little one who was coddled and protected by the family… but like the remainder of her family Poo remains like the rest of the family a beautiful person who is so much a part of the home community that they are virtually inseparable from my memories of home. She is the family member who most resembles Stephen in appearance.

Yesterday, Stephen was on a snowmobiling trip to Calabogie with his oldest son Corey and a group of boys from home. Terry Orr, Dave Tolles, and there were more, but I have not heard who else was there. They had been across the lake already a few times, but then as suddenly as a coin drops, the ice let go from under them and down the boys went – sleds and all under the frozen water. The cold hit them. The shock! But miraculously they made it up onto the frozen surface again. At the top, Stephen did not see Corey, screaming wild he couldn’t hear or see his child and thus he dove into the water to look for his beloved son – just as any family man would.
Hypothermia they call it, life support they say. But a fact remains, today, now, Stephen is dead.
It is a terrible thing, such a good man! A man who will be missed… by his wife Heather, by his children, his parents, his brother’s and sisters, his friends, his community.
Who will fix the cars in Sunbury now? Who will fill the big shoes that have been left by this small man, with a big heart?
It strikes me today, that Stephen has always been a very well liked and well respected person. I struggle to remember, but I don’t recall, anyone ever saying one bad thing, not one, EVER about this man. It is a small community, so this speaks volumes about who Stephen is, who he aspired to be and what he accomplished. To be one among the members of really, really good people. He will be mourned, missed and a part of our long hopes for his children, that they will remember and do their best to be the sort of person that Stephen strived to be and was right up to his last breath.

I struggle to understand why a man like him is taken so early, so sadly, when there are so many bad people who may not even be missed.

Stephen Sands will be missed by every single person who knew him.

God bless him and his family in their loss.

The flood on the lower moor

The flood on the lower moor

Originally uploaded by loobiesmith

When I arrived at the moor on Thursday, I was expecting to see some extra water on the river, but when I pulled up to the bridge I saw that the secondary forest was actually, now a part of the river. Our little six foot wide river had totally swelled past its banks and was now about 80 feet wide and had a flow across at least half of that! The ice sheets from one to three feet in depth and some as large as a hay wagon were spread across the land, into the forest and the noise from the flow was simply smashing! The next morning when I woke, I was drawn out to see where the banks were and was astonished to see that the river had again gone back to its normal place and was only faster than normal now. Amazing! The power of nature! The ice sheets left in place of the flood are totally astonishing!

25 things you don’t know about me

1. I appear to be confident and secure, even snobby, but really I am a marshmallow who is easily wounded and often insecure.

2. I was born an artist, but due to my strange upbringing I find that I am stifled by my own practicality.

3. I admire sustainable lifestyles, kindness and honesty in other people as well as in myself, and if people waste and pollute, lie or are mean, I judge them harshly – BUT this is the only time I allow myself to judge others.

4. About once a year, I see/meet someone whom I think is really interesting and I decide that I MUST get to know them and I will basically move the world to “accidentally” meet them or to try and get them invested in me too!

5. I love to cook, but ONLY if I cook for people who like food and enjoy eating. This said, fussy people (who don’t eat this and that for no real reason) make me crazy and I will NOT cook for them even if they are my house-guest!

6. I have a four regrets: that there were two people I was mean to when I was young: that I wore and wrecked my yellow boots in the 80’s with Blondie on a water tower adventure: that I did not always understand everything that was going on with the people who I love: that I am quite sexually backward.

7. I could most happily live in a commune if it was about working sustainably together, and I had a little place with two rooms and a bathroom of my own.

8. I am very open and enjoy the experience of participating in new things, be it new cultures, new places, new ideas, new concepts, new technology.

9. I learned to hate being a farm kid when I was one, but these days I can’t wait to farm on my own terms, as an independent, intellectual, self-sufficient woman and build a new life with responsible forethought to the planet.

10. I have a lot of difficulty eating meat, but I do it anyway, because I find vegetarianism sort of weird.

11. I blog and I am writing a book which has strong existential undertones and is based on the life of the people in rural Eastern Ontario.

12. I love strongly and let go selfishly. I have been in love with five men and each man who I was in love with stays in my heart, the good parts anyway. I miss parts of four of them and am married to my latest love for nearly 10 years.

13. I like being a mom and I think I am pretty patient, but I blame myself when things go wrong with the children that I have had a hand in raising. I did not find it easy to be a mom. I took this job seriously – maybe too seriously?

14. I miss my babies (who died) every single day since I lost them. I often imagine their appearances and what they might have been like and think about how old they would be now if they only would have lived.

15. I have four dogs, who I consider to be my children, and would have significantly more if I had a dependable dog sitter who would cover for me (without charging an arm and a leg) by staying with them while I holiday once or twice a year.

16. I consider myself a Queen’s woman and I am proud that I graduated from there. I am most proud that I won the Barbara Paul Prize which at the time was considered the top prize for adult females in their graduate year.

17. I believe in a higher power as well as in fairies and I ask both to guide and help me.

18. I think that I was a good boss even though I had to fire a number of totally incompetent people in the first week.

19. People think I am a neat freak, but I am a hoarder by nature. I am ashamed of this quality, so I do it inconspicuously. My cupboards are FULL! Food and papers. I do eventually deal with it, but I resent the job.

20. I love milk chocolate and cheesecake nearly as much as I love being alive. I can’t hoard either because I have to eat what I have immediately!

21. I worry a lot about my son, because of his heart but more particularly, since his head injury in 2007.

22. I love my son and sisters desperately.

23. I suffer from a poor body image and I wish I was super model beautiful at least ten times a day, but ironically, I also hate that I have this superficial quality!

24. I don’t believe in being unfaithful to your significant other, but I understand why this happens in marriages.

25. I dislike biting insects, extreme temperatures, people who smell bad, and despise cigarette smoke and dirty bathrooms.

The dance

Pulse.
Pulse.
Pulse.
Vibration.
Hips swaying.
I notice the edge of you.
Where you start.
Where I stop.
You are in me!
I shake with pleasure.
I hear your song in my ears.
I do a dance of desire for you.
The tube snake boogie.
Playing.
Happily.
On my iPod!

Moreland’s Moorland

Fall on the River

Originally uploaded by loobiesmith

Recently I bought land. Eight acres on the river which is beautiful rich soiled moor. This summer I will farm it. I will build a 30 x 20 log home from the woods there. It will be just one story with two loft gables for extra bedrooms. I will do this myself, with my hands and my tools. I also plan to have animals, so I must build fences and must also do some irrigation work since I have five springs on my land which I need to reroute into the river.
Moreland’s Moorland is to by my homestead, where I farm. Where I bring in my own food and get back to the land from whence I came.

I rebel: therefore we exist

I love this statement which is made and analyzed by Albert Camus. It means, that we can only really rebel, if others have set or you have internalized a set of social norms and there is something to go against.
I am a rebel without a cause by nature. I don’t give a fiddler’s fuck what people think is normal, or acceptable and due to my lack of interest in the subject of normal behavior, I very often find myself outside of the social norm.
More specifically, because I am a writer, and I choose to write about the human condition, I have a tendency to notice everything about people. Recently, I learned that this careful watching and taking in, is in all probability an invasion of privacy. I had not thought of it as such, which is ironic, since I simply take these quirks and isolate them, evaluate them, put them in different situations and mash them all together with other interesting characteristics thereby stealing them from their owners for my own ends.
I don’t know why I never saw this as an invasion before now! I might steal your eyes! I might steal the way that you tilt your head, your laugh, or the particular way that you wear clothing. If you are not careful when you are with me, I could steal your intentions, your eyelashes, your thoughts on Capitol Punishment or maybe even your sexual experience, if you shared pieces of it with me.
I warn you now that a writer is a risky friend! You better look around carefully and take a good inventory when they have left you! The writer has no self control! No pride at all! You just never know what they have taken of yours and you may never know until you crack their books and find your lost self there in black and white for all the world to see!

Bojangles

Recently, I found the voice of Nina Simone and more specifically I found her rendition of the old Jerry Jeff Walker song, Mr. Bojangles. Her sweet sad melodious voice reminds how fortunate my life is.
I forget this from time to time even as I pass the beggars who sit outside the the stores where I shop.
Even though, the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end when they approach me.
I know if ever I was stuck in a cell with Mr. Bojangles, I would be to terrified of him.
Terrified of not just of him but also of what he represents.
I could not see him in the way that Jerry Jeff has and certainly not in the way that Nina Simone interprets him – a sweet, sad, melodious man to which life has offered up more than he can handle.
I don’t know what I fear.
It could be that he has rejected all the social norms of food and shelter.
It could be that I am afraid that he has been a victim and that he might in turn victimize me.
But I think, what really scares me is the fear that at any moment status can be lost and I am irrationally afraid that his lack of status may very well be contagious.
I am afraid it may be my turn next.
Yes, I think what I most fear, is that, I am only so lucky – and so safe – and that indeed I am to be the next Bojangles.

She’s 86 years old… never MP3′d

It is a lame reference, the title, It goes back to the Hip – the best known home town band. But as I sit here with my my grandmother Violet in my hometown, in the hospital and watch her tapping her feet to the music that my friend Gary put on the MP3/radio that he suggested that I buy her… I can’t help but think about music. What is interesting is that she loves the new toy but she is also frustrated by it. All day she asks how do I turn it on? How do I turn it off? How do I get to the radio? How do I get to the songs? ” I don’t know how I will ever learn this”, ” it makes me worry”, “turn it off”!
Then she picks it up again a few minutes later interested, this electronic wonder has captured her imagination. “227 songs on there”, she is in amazement – nearly as much as I am. Gary taught me something I never knew about my very own grandmother! She enjoys tapping her toes! It is good to know!

Winter weekend morning memories

DSCF0307

Originally uploaded by loobiesmith

Winter weekend morning memories

Sitting here in my second floor office, the sun shines so bright on the fresh snow of our porch roof that I can barely see my screen.  I squint, but still the heat of the sun on my shoulders feels good and so warm that I have to remove my housecoat from my shoulders.  Klein, my beloved, fat, and stinky little dog sits on my knee as I write.  He should weigh 5 pounds but weighs 11, so his little feet drill into the flesh of my legs.  It is not comfortable, but he loves to the sun and the privilege of looking through the window.  There is more than one disadvantage to being small.  I wonder if this is why he likes to be fed so well?  A vain attempt at being bigger?  Our other dogs are all normal sized – not fat anyway, but poor Klein, he is so rolly that his vet refers to him as “butterball”, as if she wants to roast him up like a big turkey and eat him for Christmas dinner.  Then I remind myself that he is on medications for his collapsing trachea and also for epilepsy, so she probably would not want to eat him at all.  She is also Caucasian, and it is also not typical for them to eat dogs.  My dogs are like children to me, spoiled members of the family who are brought home treats, patted, protected, nurtured, so it is difficult for me to imagine that people eat them.  Dogs are so rich in personality.  

Then I remember my growing up years on the farm.  My pet chicken Buck-Buck, who I was constantly getting in trouble for.  She followed me around like Mary’s lamb after being rescued my my Uncle Bob.  She fell off the chicken truck on the way to the slaughterhouse, cage and all.  The bird loved me but she was lousy as a mouse and I can’t tell you how many hundreds of times my mother would yell at me for picking that chicken up!  The lice, they did not live long on human beings and would, once I set Buck-Buck down, leave me and go right back to the comfortable home that she provided.  They never really bothered me, the lice, so small and transparent.  My mother though, she obviously found them very distasteful since she was always yelling about the goddamned lousy chicken, particularly when I snuck it into bed with me at night.  One night, mother discovered the chicken in bed with me and threw it out the door and when I awoke in the morning Buck-Buck was nowhere to be found.  I looked everywhere!  Around the barn, in the hen house among the meat hens, in grandpa’s drive shed, the garage, the wood-pile, everywhere.  Frantically I searched, calling, knowing something was wrong, though I was only five or six.  Finally, I started through, the corn field behind my grandparent’s home farm and about a quarter way back there was a pile of white feathers.  Less than half of Buck-Buck’s feathers, but I knew she had been killed by a fox, or something.  Eaten, poor thing!  I imagine that is why I worry so much about my dogs.  Animals are eaten!

More than just the thought of my childhood pet’s terrible end is what bothers me.  It is the knowing that is difficult.  When you know that animals each come equip with personalities, identities, individualism, then those discrepancies in rights are so close to the surface.  Yesterday I read that while at a Christmas party some unknown person went into the back yard of a young family and cut the ears off their pup.  Nearly to the head.  The poor dog was bleeding and looked so weird afterward with no ears.  Excepting that, it did not look too much the worse for wear.  Animals put up with so much from us.  I was thinking about that poor dog when I suddenly remembered that people to this to dogs all the time.  Doberman’s ears are cut at birth to make them “breed standard” and these breeders also they cut off their tails.  It is expected if you want to show the dog.  Nearly tail free and heavily cropped ears are not considered to be torture.  Can you imagine giving birth to a baby and having the doctor cut off the ears so that the baby will be “breed standard”.  I guess so, since we do this to human boys all the time, except of course, it is the penis which is cut!  

I really don’t believe that my dog’s vet wants to eat our Klein, but today, the sun on my shoulders and his little legs poking into my thigh made me wonder to what extent we really are civilized.

Just one word

In music the single note of a piano can haunt you.

The sound from one string of a bass can electrify.

The singer’s voice holds a note that enchants the evening.

But for the writer, 

can a single word ever haunt, electrify, enchant?

I’ve never found one.

Naked

I lay naked,

naked with you,

fully dressed.

Homecoming

I am the Queen’s woman.  

My blood runs not just red but blue and gold.

From my Queen I came also Ban Righ

Strong as Barbara Paul,

with her around my throat a shield!

I joined NATO,

lived on foreign soil

taught the royal children how to live. 

But I have long returned,

and watched hometown,

blame my Queen,

for coming home.

Town, I beg thee not,

for you both are in my blood

and divided though I may be, 

I remain loyal

most to my Queen.

For she reached to me and lifted me

then,

squarely in the eyes

saw my beautiful suffering

and bore me life

Where you,

thought my suffering

a mattress I must forever lay on.

Toast

I watched you being beautiful

innocently at first.

Then I caught a glimpse of you

I saw the passion

now

I long to be spread with you

like butter

on toast

melting you into me

Your passion smooth and warm

excited

Do you melt from habit?

I wonder

Or do you know that inside

of warm toast

there is a soft kneaded

artisan passion

that sustains, raises, breathes

is made for the warmth of an oven

Do you recognize,

butter,

that when you melt on me

I am to be tasted

chewed

swallowed.

That I,

am but one slice of toast

This morning things look up!

Today, grandma picked up her book and started to read.  This is a clear sign of recovery! 

Now after all these long days finally I feel like I can breath a little easier!

Violet purple

My grandmother’s name is Violet.  It is also the name that her mother had.  She loves her name, and hates her nick name to which everyone refers to her as, Buttercup.  She has always been a very interesting woman.  Political, smart, loving and well read, but the thing that is quite unique about her is that she has the wonderful ability to be silly. 

Recently, she turned 86 and a few days later she fell and broke her femer just above her knee.  When she fell, She was not able to move.  The break was complete and further to this she put a fork through her elbow when she fell and also bruised herself very badly from her feet to her bum.  Since she could not move, she lay there injured for 24 hours by the time my Uncle Bob rescued her.  She was brought by ambulance into the hospital, where they poked her with needles and provided her with vitamins and medicine but in the process they bruised her some more.  She fell on the 21st of August, was rescued on the 22nd was operated on on the 23rd and now it is the 31st.  This is her ninth day of recovery. 

Grandma says that her bruises are purple and that she hates purple.  I say they are the colour of violets in flower beds of the neighbourhoods in the area.  She does not think that this us funny at all.  Apparently grandma does not apreciate silliness in her offspring!

The very ugly man

I was at our community’s wonderful free folk music festival this past weekend.  There were three days of music and community activities which were totally brilliant!  We had among other great talents three bands from Woodstock, and Steve Earle doing his thing.  Since I am a people watcher event like this are almost too much for my sensory system.  It is very exciting and interesting at the same time.  A lot of the audience are old hippies and some are young hippies too.  The music fans come out and even people who would not be part of this music scene are there tapping their fingers and toes.  The event was peaceful and since it is a folk music festival it was a group of overwhelmingly nice people.

There was a very obese woman of about 50 years of age who sat near me, she caught my people watching eyes since just about a half hour before the event she had accepted the responsibility of a foster child from the children’s fund who was there looking for sponsors for children in the developing world.  She did not look like a rich woman to me, but she had a man with her and another woman and you could tell that she was very important to them.  She smiled and chatted with them and the man gently touched her from time to time.  Not long after the this I was surprised however to see one of the ugliest events of my life unfold.  The lady got up at some time during the show, perhaps to go to the bathroom.  When she was returning I noticed that she stumbled and nearly fell.  My sudden urge was to try and catch her, but I knew in an instant that she way too far away and even if this was the case that she was far too big for me to catch.  Thankfully though she did however remain standing, catching herself before she fell, and therefore safe.  I breathed a sigh of relief since I am sure if she would have fallen on those little folding chairs that she would have really been badly hurt.  

Then I saw it.  A grown man who sat behind her with a beautiful exotic looking blonde woman on his arm. making fun of her for her obesity, laughing, puffing up his scarred cheeks.  I knew that if I could hear him, that she could too.  It was so ugly what he did, so mean spirited that the woman beside him tried to ignore him, dissociate herself from him.  What I wanted her to do was to stand up and scream at him.  To say “you are an ugly person – so ugly on the inside that it exudes out of you”  I looked at him as he sat chorkling, still not getting it, puffing his cheeks.  This man of about forty years of age and I wondered what was coming to him for his meanness of heart.  

Steve Earle continued to sing and it was lovely to hear him, but this man’s hate of the large woman is still with me.  How can anyone be so ugly to another person based only on the way that they look?  What could he possibly be getting out of this hatred?  Is there a pay back?