I should have died before I even started so many times during my life that I know He is. He must even have some reason for me being. I have found manliness in foolishness too often to still be alive a thousand times save devine saving. I have been swallowed by quicksand (glacier Mud—it is the same). I have demolished more cars than I can all recall. I have smarted-off much faster than I could run. Climbed cliffs and tall trees and fallen from both or eah without lasting scars and only once in soft water. I have faced down bullies, villains, crooks, killers, bad dogs, and wild moose—without concern. They had concerns. Not me. All in the first grade.
I have leapt from barn-lofts, high-dives, propelled motorcycles over gorges, well, ditches,well-ditches, well and not well, broken speed laws four-fold and more top-end and wantonly, piloted aircraft from housetops, at least launched them with friend test-pilot neighbors, and survived irate neighbor moms--not even first graded us either, careened in one unguided spinning black missile out of control on glazed ice asleep at the road so plenty that I still awoke and asked blessings before stopping. And this last, in sight of a River Saint Francis muddy below, landing on bridge(s). I have impulsively jumped from speeding boats in hyperthermal waters, run stop signs at 74 mph just 16; peed in the Yukon River aplenty and swam in the Bearing Sea (having been thrown there for dead) in the presence or marauding bears, grizzly and polar, and four half breed non-friends.
I’ve never had a girlfriend who was ugly, and did want to rub noses but didn't with one cute eskimo named Fun while still ten, rubbed shoulders with heroes and felons all friends, rubbed one sore head attached mornings on end, befriended deranged fiends without discomfort, mostly friends. One only tried to kill me. Now dead. I have run for my life, canoed white waters solo alive, worked for my wife and survived, survived deep wilderness days with street clothes and knife—for fun, run track with cars and feet, sang in a choir unshamed and tried all sports American and common and some neither in the same run, broken body bones, nineteen my own, and had near-misses on two runways and one mid-air.
I have mediated race riots, and performed one private sting to catch and disarmed one one-armed thief and his gun unarmed and unharmed, and have had months to live for forty-three months and counting. I’ve befriended and offended gangsters, drug dealers, and half-breeds of nine ethnicities; fought brothers older and meaner, and Brothers older and meaner. Mexicans with knives, Indians with ski-poles, and Eskimos with malice; stolen one road-grader in sub-freezing, taken back when taken aback more sober just 17 still freezing, unmissed, and a barber’s pole, and sixteen road-signs in the same night, Dad shamed me, ashamed of me.
A child teen pirating too seriously, I’ve commandeered one lake barge, and was caught and forgiven within one half-hour period, boarded a stern-wheeler named Chena on a River named Chena with two best friends Kimo and Mickey and Mickey’s girl dog named Chena, not that far from the North Pole, close to Russia, and once tried to dig my way to China, finding adults were liars.
A faithful husband. Wow. How? Evaded eleven women inclined to un-marrying, and countless more not for sure so-intented but still not invented. And that scared cow ridden was not brown. I’ve escaped contract-killing, two death-threats. I believed them, and had two bad cops and a prosecutorial framing, traffic tickets in nine states, and I’ve owned sixty-one good but some stray dogs without rabies shots and forty-three cats the same—three crazy and two mean and some dogs mean too. I have sailed sleds on thin ice in Arctic spring thaw cracking like timbers falling, survived boot-camp under a maniacal commander who liked me, so didn't kill me, but just barely, though some hanged unfairly, but just barely, roped without branding too many mean mustangs wild domestics, thrown up and back fast, hurt fairly.
I once owned a fast-back Mustang lime green and rare, caught sharks and barracuda, and drove an orange Barracuda, ate one rare, the other well done thoroughly, raced porpoises, speared flounders and frogs, got one eye speared but not squarely, floundered and gagged, patched like a pirate but not permanently, now scared but not patched nor too pirately; pulled frightened and frightening creatures from four seas or oceans, and six wide rivers, fly-fished most streams in half of one state, handled snakes of every description, slept on six exotic beaches, two, naked, but not erotic, and mistakenly in a hourly rental Hotel California for four great hours with my wife in Puerto Rico. We ignored mirrors on the ceiling and three walls, so tired were we from being lost in that jungle, drank pink lemonade, no ice, and Spanish Pepsi's, and did check out in four hours, just barely.
I’ve fought sand fleas on tropical islands, pick-pockets in four European capitals,and three continents, mosquito's of all sizes on two continents, ear-bugs in boot-camp, chiggers or red-bugs in brier-patches, swarmed wasps in a bedroom, and primal urges for a lifetime, taken blue ribbons and plastic trophies for track in high-school, and obstacle-courses in the most powerful and inefficient Navy in the world--with asthma. I’ve heard the morning news at night by short-wave only, and heard JFK’s fate three days late, so remote, and talked Morris code at 16 words per minute to comrades without arms in twenty-eight nations; had heat stroke, strep throat, and pneumonia in the tropics, stripped bare as dared, frostbitten, with strep-throat and pneumonia bare-assed in the desert, watched it snow one Independence day in the midnight sun, and one birthday in the tropics. And as previously stated slept twice in the tropics on beaches clothed birthdaily. But never gayly.
I’ve seen humans die without flinching, unhuman, and I’ve flinched while recounting them, inhumanely, but manly. I’ve hopped trains when thought cool, thumbed rides in summer—too hot, thumbed snow-cats in blizzards, and my nose in sandstorms and at many safety rules, joined a line that Congo’d in the Quarter Frenchly, ate alligator tail with Cajuns, and watched Cajun tails with garters, still eating, but not gator. I’ve used crank phones, dial phones, computer phones, headphones, and cell phones. I’ve had tapped phones with only one-call from only one cell, no one home--alone; I’ve left too many places and seldom went home. I’ve taken the ferry at Toad Suck, smacked a closet-fairy in a water closet. Both stunk. Both sucked.
I’ve been lost in jungles and laughed while surviving on tropical fruit and flirting with dear wife to lighten hysteria while driving without hands unhysterically, historically; slept through final airport destinations twice, run seven hundred gates a quarter, in twenty-three airports, was trained by the government to kill and to land planes by radio, and selfishly did neither, went AWOL without being shot and undisciplined, fell asleep at a guard post during war a capitol offense but suffered no consequences but push-ups, which I did with one arm. I was real light then, but it still impressed me if not them.
I’ve slept through most of the largest three-day hippie gathering save Woodstock, run trot-lines at midnight on the Arkansas River, camped within earshot, caught candlefish by hand in unnamed tundra sloughs, had one tick in one beard for eight days following said gathering, and watched worried wolves or huskies floating on ice-bergs in one River Kuskukwim—so wide, I couldn't see the other side without squinting. I’ve loved very few, and didn’t leave one. Rode a large scared cow, no bull, mooing, and was once assaulted by feral hogs, and have gardened and built scarecrows unworking, and dodged angry rodeo bulls and screaming stock-cars, in blue-jeans and tennis shoes, cussing or laughing with cameras.
I’ve raced motorcycles faster than death and horses both, eyes closed and without saddle, fast, with both eyes closed or open mostly, and shadows on spooky midnights, and a lifetime; built golf-courses, pushed three-ton freight cans all night in rain, sleet, snow, and heat, wounded; hung by gondola between Alpine, and San Andean peaks, chased from the latter by number seven, climbed redwoods lain horizontal, photographed heads of state, been hugged by three famous singers, one female and pretty. One blind and drinking. One, homosexual, fat, and winking. And I've had only one golden ring.
I’ve had my inner throat removed, survived three major medical mistakes, barium enemas, scars from rusty blades and shiny knives, rusty nails, and broken bottles; cut-off and fixed back fingers, caught my skin in my fly-zipper—just once. I’ve lived with six genetic conditions I can only pronounce while not medicated for them. I’ve lived with a holy liver, a stormy thyroid, ruptured appendix, obstructed lungs, wrecked spine, damaged brain, sprung arches, and little feeling in all limbs, ALL limbs, little, no feeling--except pain I couldn’t stand, but had to, with swollen blue hands, blue-moods, blue blood, heavy metals, migraines, and slept with three breathing machines and one beautiful woman, and only cussed twice, or none or once daily.
And I hope to do it all again.
No God? Man, no. Man!