OCR Text |
Show THE ZEPHYRJULY 1993 PAGE 10 contribution to the human enterprise, yet which leads to a special kind of joy. In my case, I envy a guy who used to come into the old Buffalo Tavern in Seattle. Using a 5 He'd hang around the pool tables and offer to play you him three balls ahead, he'd even play you trenching shovel for a cue. If you'd give with the digging end of the shovel, which had some duct tape on it to keep from and you weren't one hell of a pool player, nicking the cue ball. If you were smart offer to watch him destroy some other fool's you'd leave well enough alone. And just of the kind they don't teach in high education ego. But if you wanted to get a little school, and you didn't mind losing twenty dollars in a huny, then you could take him on, shovel and all. I know about all this firsthand. Oh, he was good, all right, but he was nothing compared to his wife. She played with a broom or a mop - your choice - no handicap. in town before she stopped playing She'd whipped every hotshot pool and started having babies. Rumor is she played her obstetrician three rounds of eightball for her bill, double or nothing. She won. My wife envied her. African-America- n, sexy, sultry torch My wife also envies Lena Home, the tall, wife is short, so for American the has who long. My stage graced singer sweet, and is good at old Girl Scout songs. It's OK that she envies Lena Home. For this kind of envy you don't go to hell. From the Miami Desk of the Zephyr left-hand- ed. cue-push- er Asian-America- n, By Robert Fulghum spent Memorial Day weekend in Miami, Florida, at the annual convention of the American Booksellers Convention. Forty thousand people connected to the publishing business were there in a couple of football field sized spaces full of books. Lots of famous folks were there pushing their books - Oprah, Margaret Thatcher, Stephen King, Irma Bombeck, Gary Hart, Larry King - just to mention a few I saw up I close. Standing on a balcony overlooking this literary sea, a friend asked me if there was anyone down there I envied. The question made me nervous. Envy isn't nice. Envy has long been considered a sin infused with jealousy and a tendency to covet, which thou shalt not, especially in the case of thy neighbor's wife and whatever. My friend's question stuck in my mind and hung in there all the way back to Moab. I'm old enough and have been around enough to know that if I knew everything there was to know about most people's lives, I'd just as soon have my own life rather than theirs. Better troubles of my own than someone else's. But I do believe there are degrees of envy. The envy that is carried on with a light heart and good humor is harmless enough. Most envy that doesn't lead to theft and manslaughter is OK. Yesterday I was at an open house and walked around admiring the intricate stonework used in the building of the home. The flagstone floors were perfectly laid and the pillars and columns of dry stone work were as fine as human hands can construct. I realized envy was at work in my head. I didn't envy the owners. I envied my two friends, Tim Morse and Rocky Beny, who have such an extraordinary way with stone - the capacity to lay up work that will last for much longer than the words I craft on paper. I wish I was a stone mason like them. I think of this as affirmative envy. There's another kind of affirmative envy which reflects delight in the fringes of human achievement. The kind that doesn't last and isn't really a useful At age fifty five I begin to realize there are some things I will never have or be or do. For lack of opportunity, equipment, inclination, talent or something. Playing championship pool with a shovel or a broom or a mop is just not going to happen in my case. I'm stuck with the secret consolation of affirmative envy. My only hope is being reincarnated. I am counting big on reincarnation. In my next life, I will be one of those who remembers great poetry and can recite it with skill and passion. I will be able to tie all kinds of knots and never forget how from one time to the next. When I come around again I will have a brain that can become fluent in another language. I will be able to play a small accordion, tap dance, sing in a very deep bass voice, do doseup magic tricks, and play "As Time Goes By" on the slide trombone so well that all estranged lovers will be reunited when they hear it. And I will finally be able to remember what baits what in a poker hand. Note that I don't ask to be handsome or wise or a billionaire. I don't want to be Oprah or president Those are burdens I couldn't cany. Mostly it's just the less flamboyant stuff I envy now and want next time. Like being able to lay stone beautifully. Like being able to shoot championship pool with a shovel. Or maybe with a chopstick. Now that would be something. PS: I used to envy people who knew the names of all the birds and flowers and bushes and layers of rock. To hell with them. I make up my own names now, because I have come to believe that field guides are a hoax. Next month I will do a full expose of the field guide racket In the meantime, to settle a bet if anybody who read this newspaper has ever seen a "bastard toad-wart- ", will you get in touch. This thing is in a field guide to western plants and I say there ain't no such. Photograph: "Fulghum and his Walking Stick. October 1991. Risenhoover Canyon. net nVbiiFrfcJ bs7 I I HOMESTEADS FOP INFORMATION. WRITE CP DROP B-Y- TWE SILVER GRILL RESTAURANT THOMPSON SPRINGS. UTAH 84540 CHECK FOP OUP BPOCHUPE. AVAILABLE ALL OVEP MOAB |