It’s Saturday:
we’re at the beach;
the beer’s on ice,
--  Don’t the thongs look nice!
What else could the likes of us be expected to do
with our inside-selves, but to 
open a fresh deck,
and deal out a hand of: “There once was..."
 
 
 
 

There was once a man who found himself with 
an unruly dog; 
a situation that bothered him greatly.

He came to be bothered even more by the fact that –  
--  HE  -- a thinking, rational human being -- 
could not bring a mere DOG under his control.

After a period of such s'accusation
his view became that since he was not the creator of the dog, (and thus not responsible for its inherent nature), 
he should not now expect to be able to alter same, 
and should not be taking its behavior personally;
after all – the dog was the dog, and  --  he was him.

The man however, found himself eventually confronted with something even more troubling than the original problem he’d had with the dog: 
the realization that he, the one bothered by the dog, 
(for whom he was in no way responsible), 
that he was also not the creator of the HIM being 
bothered by the dog.

                 ”So,” he had to ask himself, 
                 “Who is responsible for this ME?”
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

There was once a king who sat in his fine castle 
amidst his fine kingdom -- 
and everything was mostly  --  fine -- 
except for one thing:
he kept hearing the sounds of disturbance --
--  off in the distance  -- 
but none of his couriers could locate its source.

He would hear it --
they would go look for it;
he would hear it -- 
they could not find it;
the king was not crazy,
and they were not lazy,
but the source of the disturbing noises 
could not be found.

Although his couriers were kept busy searching for it,
they were never bothered by it  --
--  only the king was.

     It’s --   good to be king!
     It can be a drag being king!
     .....(if you never get the hang of the job.)
 
 
 
 
 

There was once a movie company who made 
quite select films;
movies which were in fact --  so exclusive
that they were only shown to an audience of one.

But there was something even more unusual:
while they made films for a single viewer,
the single viewer also made the company.

                  No movie --  no audience; 
                  no audience  --  no movie.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

There was once a man who wanted to go -- FAR AWAY;
more than anything else he wanted to leave where he was and go --  FAR AWAY.

He read about, FAR AWAY;
he dreamed about, FAR AWAY,
he discussed, FAR AWAY with others,
and he would sit on his roof and look off in the direction of --  FAR AWAY.

One day while being examined for a curious ill
it was discovered that the words, FAR AWAY
had been tattooed on the inside of his eye lids.
 
 
 
 
 
 

There was once a man who had a ventriloquism act;
just he and his dummy.
All went well for a while until one day 
the man suddenly realized that it was not him 
making the dummy speak.

”All these years,” he pondered, 
“Listening to the dummy talk, and thinking that 
I was listening to my own voice;
but now I realize that for all these years I actually 
HAVE BEEN  --   listening to him talk!

                           How can this be?”
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

There was once a man who lived in a 
house he had inherited;
since he planned to stay there the rest of his life,
he decided to fix it up  --  MAKE IMPROVEMENTS.
But he discovered the totally unexpected:
the structure could not be altered.
Oh, he could make a change at a certain spot,
but as soon as he walked away --  or even just
looked away from the change -- 
--  it disappeared, 
and everything went back to like it’d been.

For a long time this troubled the man with the house,
’til he finally saw the situation like this:
”I inherited the place, and during the first years of my living here, I was delighted with it;
then I began to find fault with it, and tried to change it 
to suit a taste that had inexplicably appeared in me,
which differed from the reality of the 
previously cherished residence; 
I found that no efforts to this end resulted in 
permanent change to the structure;
it’s still just like it was when I first moved in  --
--  a few years older --  but basically unchanged."

               He now has a new hobby:
      he ponders the meaning of, “Improvement.”

                                 JAN
 
 
 

P.S. There is no such time as: “There was once…”
 
                       …hand me a cold one.