Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

"Its been a slow week here in Lake Woebegone..."

-Garrison Keeler,
Prairie Home Companion

Prairie Home Companion is a radio show on NPR that Dad got me listening to a while back. I love the way the host, Garrison Keeler, tells his stories about life in the small Minnesota (I think) town. He starts every story with the same opening line. I just wanted to give credit where credit was due.

I have a pillow here. Very rarely do I remember to bring a pillow with me when I leave home. I don't know why. One would think that I would remember to bring something as important as a pillow, seeing that, at least to me, it is the most important part of an individual's bedding. Usually, I work on the principal,"Out of sight, out of mind". I don't see my head very often.

I received my pillow as a gift. I don't know when. Or why. Or even who from. I'm pretty sure it was from a family member, but I can't remember who. Sorry. My pillow is a little throw pillow that you'd see on a couch or bed belonging to some high school kid. It was. Now you can see it on a bed, right now a cot, belonging to some soldier. It has a head shot of the cartoon character 'Marvin the Martian' on the front, and has a black and white checkered design on the back. Right in the middle of Marvin's face is a two inch tear from where the fabric has worn thin. Some of the white stuffing, which is now unevenly clumped together caused by a washing experiment gone bad, protrudes from the wound. The printed colors have faded considerably from exposure to the sun; the black checkers are more of a medium gray. The pillow is dirty, the whites are more of a tan or brown, from exposure to an almost constantly dirty soldier. The clumped stuffing now makes the pillow a bit lumpy, but it still serves its purpose.

My pillow has served in many of my life's campaigns. Back home, in Barnhart, Missouri it served as just another decoration in the eclectic collection of oddities that adorned The Typical Teenage Male's bedroom. Later, it served as an 'emergency pillow', residing in the trunk or the back seat of the Mighty Regal during my many trips between Barnhart and Fort Bragg. When the Regal was put out to pasture, my pillow retired once again to a bedroom environment, this bedroom now belonging to a soldier. It pulls duty there as an ad hoc teddy bear. Now, here, in El Salvador, I use my pillow as a pillow, its original purpose.

Some of you know, most of you don't, that back home on my bed in Barnhart, Missouri, resides a small brown bear. It is nearly twenty-two years old, like myself. Teddy bears do not have as long as a life span as people do, and it shows on the face of my old friend. His nose has no more stuffing, from years of being used as a carrying handle. The mouth is entirely gone. There are stitches all over his body; the length of his back, his neck, other spot repairs fixed by mother's and grandmothers' hands. His eyes, the left one falls out on occasion, are scratched and scarred giving the bear's eyes the milky, white appearance of cataracts. I still sleep with the bear nestled in the crook of my arm when I sleep in my bed, in my mom's house, in Barnhart, Missouri. It's a small physical manifestation of my childhood. Everyone needs a teddy bear.

I didn't feel like writing about my everyday occurrences this time. Just felt like sharing my thoughts. ( I have a lot of time to sit around and think.) No telling what I'll write next, but that's part of the joy of writing this...whatever it is I write. Until next time...

Love,
Kurt