Surreal Is As Surreal Does

The Wondrous Jots & Tittles I Have Seen,

Glimpsed As Through A Darkened Pane,

Reveal A World That Might Have Been,

Snapshots Of A Higher Happier Plane.

The perpetrator of the above was me, Gene Chambers. I alone am responsible for it. If anyone should be ashamed of having created such a curious piece of work, it is I, and I alone.

Oh WOW!

Just now, I saw out my window a flock of brightly colored parakeets. They appeared before my eyes as if they'd blossomed forth from some other dimension, 8 or 10 of them, hopping around in the grass, no kidding, out on my front lawn, a blue one, two green & yellow ones, and several darker-feathered ones.

The birds arrived in a flash and left in a flash. I had only a brief but delightful glimpse of them.

Oh WOW!

What exactly is sensation?

Is it related to an epiphany?

I should think not.

The former is only a flash, a glimpse of a potential idea or concept, lacking the concreteness produced by weighty pondering and yet somehow excitingly memorable: a sudden stab of inspired feeling.

The latter is a seemingly instantaneous conclusion drawn from extended subconscious musings upon the former.

Or so it seems to me.

Jocular Jots and Titillating Tittles? Oh yes. Oh yes, indeed.

I found an old picture of the church I joined and attended in the early and mid-1950s. Being a member of the town's recognized in-group (doctors, lawyers, educators) seemed at the time a judicious and wise decision.

And there was a ping-pong table in a back room.

First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

Rensselaer, Indiana

The minister was Joe Fitch. Most of the more pious members of the church called him Reverend Fitch, but I called him Joe. He didn't seem to mind. Not only was he my pastor, he was the father of a saucy young girl (a school classmate) that I admired from afar. And he was at one point (during my teenage hoodlum years) an understanding and lenient probation officer.

On a completely different note . . .

While searching for appropriate pictures to insert into this posting, I happened upon one of West Washington Street (the main drag) taken in Rensselaer back in 1910. There seems to be an electric light hanging from a wire above the intersection. Could be a traffic signal. Did they have traffic lights back then?

Notice the pounded-dirt surface of the road.

Speaking of roads . . .

The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

"The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost.

Looking back I now can see that I did that too; instead of the brightly lighted path I took the shadowed weed-grown road, the crooked, twisted secluded way, that winding back-road that is most often shunned. Because it seemed the right one, the only one, the one created surely just for me.

And from time's penultimate perspective I can see that, indeed, it has made all the difference.