COLOURFUL MEMORIES

Sample of Haiku poetry page

          Quite a few people had quite the giggle from my last post; all about poop. I had quite the chuckle too as I wrote it. Not sure what I should write about now but as long as the fingers are on the keyboard, something usually comes to mind.

          I've been busy putting a small poetry book together, which I mainly wrote while lying on my back. Still recovering from the cancer treatments - don't seem to know where all that energy I used to have has taken off to - greener pastures I expect. There are 18 haiku poems, which I have illustrated and they are  based mainly on the hippie era. The booklet (5x4.25") is small enough to fit in an envelope and mail to a friend or to an old hippie who hasn't faded away yet.  The price is $7.50, about the same price as a Hallmark card. I've also enlarged each poem (8.5x11") so they can be easily coloured and the price is $7.50 plus postage. I haven't finished the cover yet but the title is Trippin' With Trip (alter ego) Haiku for You. The booklet will be in full-colour and I'll be using pencil crayons for the illustrations, which should be fun. Besides the booklet, Sarah and I are both busy crafting hippie-stuff such as jewelry, macrame, rugs, etc. We are hoping our joint efforts will help pay a bit towards our upcoming road-trip.

          Now that I've made my sales pitch, it might be interesting to know that the pencil crayons I'm using, many of them stubs, were given to me by my dad almost 65 years ago.  And that my friends, is the reason I haven't thrown away the stubs, which aren't even usable now - call me a sentimentalist - but every time I use them, I think about my dad and the day he gave them to me.

            It's a hot Vancouver-day in August and it's summer vacation - a great time for a boy - no school! I'm pedaling like hell down hill through a park with my friend sitting in front of me on the bar. We're on our way to knock off a penny-gum-ball machine (it seems whoever owned it left the key to the cash box in the lock) and I've had that very key in my pocket for about two weeks, which let me tell you, had been burning a hole in it. We're laughing and giggling about the upcoming heist and that's the last I remember of that bicycle ride.

          By the condition of the bent and twisted front wheel and spokes, the best I could come up with, is that my friend accidentally put his front foot through the wheel and the bike came to a serious halt. I must have flown over his head, landed head-first on the pavement and was knocked unconscious, which might help explain some of the weird things I've done over the years. Luckily, a nurse, who must have seen the accident, came to my rescue. When I came to, I bawled like a baby; the right side of my face and ear were really battered and I was bleeding like a stuck pig.  I was rushed to the hospital and I was there until evening when my folks returned from Sidney, Vancouver Island. The worried expression on their faces told me that they really cared for me; I was not a pretty sight. 

          Needless to say, since I had a slight concussion, two big black-eyes and had to lay in bed for a couple of days, this was not my idea of a fun summer vacation. And that's when my dad gave me a book How to Draw and a full set of Pismacolor pencils, which would have cost a lot of money in those days.  So, here I am at age 77, lying in bed fairly often, except for a different reason and I'm using the pencil crayons again, like I have so many times over the years.  Like the bicycle accident, I'm still thankful to be alive, able to draw, paint and write stories and poetry. However, it's still a challenge since I've gone half blind in my right eye and the other one isn't far behind. (Waiting for the cataract operation, which should clear things up, or at least that's what the doc said.)

          Actually, when I think back, those pencil crayons have earned me quite a bit of dough professionally and it was good to know that my dad was still alive when I went to work as an animator and background artist and then on to be an art director for a TV studio. Because up until then, I'd been a wee bit on the wild side and had been hanging with a seedier bunch of so called friends. I'm thankful I didn't go down that road too far and who knows, maybe those pencil crayons had a lot to do with it - cheers, eh!