I’ve been dreaming of a return trip to Crete recently. Can’t be done, and not just because I’d have to pay for two airplane seats to accommodate my girth. A chap can dream, though. Dreams are free.
However, I was sitting thinking about my tree on the coast at Gouves, under which I’ve snoozed many an afternoon away, pretending to read a book in the shade. Well, perhaps I can’t visit, but I can at least have a look on Google maps.
Sad. The hotel has been enlarged out of all proportion, and my tree is gone.
Not just that, but the big rock I used to sit on at Poughkeepsie is now a car park.
Better not look for other favourite places around the world, or even at home in the UK. So many of the small things I’ve loved have gone, lost in the march of time.
Oh, sure, if I went back to Gouves now I’d find another tree, and no doubt there are other rocks in Poughkeepsie. Wouldn’t be the same, though.
Anyway, back to the present time and place, and it’s been another purely lovely early spring day, with blue sky and the sun strong enough to scorch winter-whitened skin if I were inclined to burn. I stood against the white wall in the back garden, smoking a ciggie, and Graham said I looked like an elderly Italian gentleman, darkening in the sun. No bad thing, that.
An observation:
Old lady: “Why have you taken to smoking again after all this time?
Me, smiling: “Because Jesus wants me for a chimney.”
Well, you have to laugh, don’t you?
17 responses so far ↓
Gordo // March 5, 2010 at 9:14 pm
I suppose you do have to laugh.
We’re looking at the next week being beautifully sunny and unseasonably warm here. No blooms yet, though.
Wendy, NC // March 5, 2010 at 10:03 pm
I laughed, I chortled, and finally I guffawed.
Esther in Dallas // March 5, 2010 at 10:39 pm
I loved the joke. I was laughing here at my desk. I used to be made to sing that dreadful song, “Jesus wants me for a sunbeam” when I was a child. Thank you John.
bonnie // March 5, 2010 at 10:47 pm
I suppose I’m the old lady.
Jim // March 5, 2010 at 11:17 pm
Is this the week for thoughts about Poughkeepsie?
~ Sil in Corea // March 6, 2010 at 12:48 am
Laughed till the tears came!!! John, you are a “cute cutter,” as my grandpa used to say.
My soul and body, Jim,… you, too?
Kate & Jim // March 6, 2010 at 2:23 am
Which Poughkeepsie??? Where? My Poughkeepsie that’s just across the river? (I doubt it, but hey…). Proximity would have been nice, eh?
Jim // March 6, 2010 at 3:21 am
How many places can be named Poughkeepsie? (The name is based on a Native American phrase — probably from the Wappinger tribe (but I’m really guessing — it could also have been Algonquin confederacy, consisting of the Delaware or the Mohigan tribe — or even the
Jim // March 6, 2010 at 3:25 am
okay, how did I garble that attempt at typing? Obviously my brain is no longer functioning. I was just trying to say that I do not know of any other places named Poughkeepsie — and since it was based on a local tribal place name, it is unlikely to find another Poughkeepsie in Arizona or some such place (unless some homesick settler from the Hudson Valley brought the name with him).
canyon cottage // March 6, 2010 at 4:03 am
Oh, yes things change. sometimes its sad sometimes its not. Your last post had me buying daffys today! I got 50 buds!
canyon cottage // March 6, 2010 at 4:03 am
Oh and the best part I forgot, they were only $6.50!
Neva Williams // March 6, 2010 at 6:08 am
Nope … there is no Poughkeepsie here in Arizona, but we do have a Miami.
Kate & Jim // March 6, 2010 at 7:50 am
Well, if it was the NY Poughkeepsie, what brought you there?
There’s another journal entry for you John…yes?
oldgreypoet // March 6, 2010 at 8:14 am
Poughkeepsie? Up-state NY. I was there for a short time, staying in a wooden bungalow, doing software things. The proximity to IBM was useful.
Mage Bailey // March 6, 2010 at 5:25 pm
Not bad at all.
AVT // March 6, 2010 at 7:41 pm
Dear John,
I am that elderly Italian gentleman whose life the breeze of days gone by touches each and every day. The sad side of a memory is disappearance, but the brighter side is the soul inside that lasts till death.
AVT
novie // March 7, 2010 at 5:53 am
Oh dear. Shades of “Last of the Summer Wine”.
Like gas stations in rural Texas after 10 pm, comments are closed.