‘July is almost gone; back to school in August,’ Jane said. ‘Where did the summer go?’ Jane moaned. ‘We have not taken our big adventure, and it is Dog Days,’ Jane laughed. ‘I think Cave In Rock Cave would be an excellent summer conquest,’ Jane announced. ‘I hear there is a secret passage that no one has returned from,’ Jane winked. ‘We shall take the passage and discover the mystery,’ Jane danced. ‘Some say the passage in the cave is a time tunnel,’ Jane noted. ‘Perhaps we will be transported to the time of Homer’s Odyssey,’ Jane proclaimed!

‘When you turn your flashlight out, it is pitch dark,’ Chet remarked. ‘I attached twine at the entrance so we can follow it out of the cave,’ Chet continued. ‘Buddy did some spelunking here in 1978 and was never heard from again, Chet observed. ‘He wore a Miner’s helmet with a light on top,’ Chet said. ‘The Helmet was found with the lamp still burning,’ Chet said softly. ‘This is the Tunnel of Mystery that Buddy took,’ Chet commented as they entered. ‘Look to your right; there is a path veering off the main walkway that has ancient Greek artifacts and another path to the left, which looks like it leads to the 1920s,’ Chet said excitedly. ‘Straight ahead is Hillcrest School,’ Chet noted just before they fell.

‘Here we are; it is August, and we are back at school,’ Jane said with a forlorn look. Why didn’t we take the path to ancient Greece or the 1920s?’ Jane asked.

‘Look out the window for a surprise,’ Chet laughed.

Ancient Greece was laid out in all of its splendor in the window facing right, and the 1920s were displayed outside the left window. A ball of twine was on each of their desks.

The crickets are singing. A mower hums in the distance. Over 20 different birds sing their evening songs. Evening Songs are special. Songs of joy and peace at the end of the day. Songs of hope for tomorrow. Songs coming from minds and hearts, throats and chests we think little of in our quest for perfection. The Bullfrog Quartet appreciates the melodious songs of the diverse bird family. The singers are from across the country and the world, singing around Brooks Pond. They think not of the artificial borders of humans.
Theirs is the joy of living. They want to tell all who will listen about the ecstasy!

We are singers singing the songs of our lives. From Blow The Man Down to Brother Can You Spare a Dime. We want to be heard in the vast void. For a moment we were here. We lived and loved. We laughed and cried. We lived and died. As the old song says, we were looking for a city where we would never die. We looked for a city where we would never have to say goodbye.

The Bullfrogs are preparing for their performance. Their hearts are full of joy for the Earth as they see it from their vantage point. The sun is setting, and the animal kingdom is fine with that. Soon it will be time to put the kids to bed. Perhaps some hot chocolate and a leftover scone from morning. Mrs. Beaver has a new book, ‘Humans and How to Understand Them.’ Mr. Beaver is drawing up additional plans for the Dam of 2026. The trees have peculiar shadows. Red and gold among the green.

The days are getting shorter. With our best efforts, we cannot pull the reins in time to stop it. We speak of a month as a day, a year as a month. We jump from the cradle onto the tricycle to the car to the adult tricycle. We are in the middle of the Secret.

What seems a mystery on page 2 of our story is clear by page 22. How did we climb to the top of the hill only to slide down the other side? We spend our lives in quiet search of the Secret. In those halcyon days of our beginning, we understood the Secret. Our eyes were wide with wonder. Our hearts were full of the joy of knowing. The journey was ours; we were ready. There was a mission to complete; we chose to accept it. The mission was integral to the Heavens and the Earth. We were essential. It was going to be a quick mission. The Secret required dedication, diligence, and determination. We were up for the task. The briefing was inspiring. Understanding what lay at stake was sobering. Laugh the lusty laugh of the newborn! What a ride we had joined!

The Old Man saw the Secret in a glimpse at dusk. He remembered and smiled. He had been a quiet watcher of the Secret for years. Fifty years ago, he knew the mission would be short. At times, his role in the mission to find the Secret was clear. Other times the skies were cloudy and grey. For short times, he forgot the mission. Then a dream would inspire him. He dressed in his explorer clothes and set out once again.

There are chapters of seeking the Secret. At times the Coach has you on the Bench resting for the next performance. Reflection is good for seeking. Then words are said that stir the heart of the Old Man. Memories return like a flood. There is a reason we are here. We have a purpose. Our time on the Stage is now. The Costume Shop has our unique theatre regalia and a second set in case we lose the first. A good Costumer is always ready. The Playwright brings us our lines. We laugh the lusty laugh of the newborn as we enter stage left.

Hot is the word of the day. The kind of heat that you perspire in sitting. The rainwater from a week ago has dried up in the Woods Creek. Brooks Pond is looking good. It was up a lot last week. As I listened to a podcast about Monsters, I was intrigued by democracy and being subject to the will of the majority. I love our democratic form of government, but we are at the mercy of people who are ill-informed or ill-intentioned. Thus, we are at the mercy of a President whom the majority of the country does not support.

We introverts are loners. We like to go our own way, dance to the tune of our own drummers. Loners stand out on committees. We are not afraid to have a divergent opinion. Groupthink is not our forte. We are comfortable being on the outside looking in.

Loners are valuable to society, churches, and governments. People who are not interested in going along to get along, and yet not those who cry fire in a crowded theatre. Christ was a loner. He did not fit in with the religious leaders of his day, nor with the political leaders. Jesus spoke of a radical faith. A faith based on inclusion and poor people, sinners, and winebibbers. Jesus spent time with lepers. He ate at the humble tables of fishermen. He sought the counsel of the voiceless and nameless, those who had no voice.

Our Chancellor was fired many years ago, and I stood up and said the firing was without cause. She was a breath of fresh air on our Campus. She loved the blue-collar staff and emphasised their importance to the University. My job and my staff were threatened by the administration. I did not back down. Principle meant more than a job to me. Speaking out against the popular crowd came naturally. I had been invited into the inner sanctum a time or two but chose not to enter. I had to look at myself in the mirror.

I liked Bozo the Clown as a child in Chicago. He seemed eternally happy, upbeat, and fun. George Costanza, a Baby Boomer, extolled the virtue of Bozo to a clown at a birthday party who felt inferior to Bozo on a Seinfeld episode. George ran from a kitchen fire and knocked over women and children while the clown at the party put the fire out with his big shoe. When my family moved to Southern Illinois, I was sad there was no Bozo on television.

Kramer of Seinfeld was afraid of clowns. I can relate. After Bozo, no clown measured up. What was going on behind the Grease Paint? What evil lurked just beyond the lapel flower that squirted you with water? What did the clowns talk about when they were off duty?

Politicians wear the big red noses of Clown College, the makeup, the wide painted-on smile in our time. Their happy yet malevolent countenance fools a lot of folks. They want to increase affordability, bring down prices, and keep us out of foreign wars. They are for the Little People. ‘Give us a chance, and you will not be sorry; you will get tired of winning,’ Politicians say.

Clowns are tricky. Just about the time they have worked hard and stayed on the straight and narrow, a Clown Car comes along, and they run to jump in.

We are old; we are new. Each day a chapter. A new chapter begins in the morning. What a thrill, what a kick! Whatever yesterday brought, tomorrow is another day, Scarlett told us in Gone With the Wind. Not one life but thousands. Each day we write a New Story. Unconnected from what came before. We jump on the Heavenly Trampoline. We jump through the clouds. We are lighter than air. We need weighted shoes.

We write our New Story each morning. Today we will enjoy a safari. Marlin Perkins of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom will lead the group. We will see lions and tigers and bears, oh my! No fear, no doubts or regrets. The Story of Our Life Today will be Adventure!

‘Age is a word as is old,’ Chet said. ‘Our minds are as young as we were when we were classmates in Eldorado,’ Chet noted. ‘Whatever we choose to do, we can do,’ Chet danced and laughed. ‘Each day is a new life; the limits are our imaginations,’ Chet winked. ‘Today we will follow Ponce De Leon as he seeks the Fountain of Youth.

‘Yesterday I was the serious kid in the class photo worrying about my Mom and her health,’ Billy B said. ‘A female classmate told me that she believed I would be carrying a briefcase one day and be the leader of a large organization,’ Billy B continued. ‘I laughed like Sara of the Old Testament, but I did not forget her words and decided that this might indeed happen if I wanted it to,’ Billy B mused.

‘Have you noticed Chet often begins floating above the ground, and if outside, he floats away?’ Jane said. ‘Thelma bought him some weighted shoes that keep him near the Earth but not on it,’ Jane explained. ‘Whenever he thinks of the next day of his life, he begins to float with excitement at the possibilities,’ Jane laughed.

Monsters fascinated me as a lad. Whether Frankenstein, Dracula, or Aliens. My cousin Billy subscribed to Monster Magazines. They were full of movie monsters, old and new, in the early 60s. Billy had a Creature From the Black Lagoon realistic Head and Hands. I wore them in an 8-millimeter film we shot. The monsters highlighted many of society’s ills. Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The movie was about giant pods becoming human replicas of people in the town they had invaded, taking their form and killing the person. The replacements showed no emotion. Another movie with similar overtones is Pluribus, where aliens have captured all but seven humans, thereby giving them hive-like knowledge. The people they can not take over is the conundrum and the focus of the television series.

The Salem Witch Trials resulted in the execution of several innocent people on the word of excitable young women. We quickly demonize what we do not understand. Angst causes us to seek a release from our stress of living with real monsters.

‘Well, Frankenstein was at the Orpheum Theatre last Sunday,’ Chet said. ‘Frank noted that Halloween is coming up soon,’ Chet continued. ‘He is preparing to dress as Mitch McConnell,’ Chet explained. ‘Frankenstein laughed when he mused on the surprise people will have on their faces when they see him in his Mitch McConnell costume,’ Chet continued. ‘The Senator has had speculation as to whether he is brain dead or dead,’ Chet explained. ‘It seems AI photos are circulating of him on the internet,’ Chet offered.

‘I saw the President the other day; I swear he had fangs like Dracula,’ Jane said with a shiver. ‘He was discussing his Bitcoin earnings and validating that the billion dollars he had earned since he has been President was normal and perfectly within the law. ‘He said his participation in Bitcoin had boosted the industry,’ Jane remarked.

‘Joe is not himself these days; he mumbles about America First and believes if you are homeless it is your fault,’ Neva J said. ‘Joe was a giving person and participated in food pantry drives and funding for homeless shelters,’ Neva J continued. ‘He invited immigrants and believed the United States was a Melting Pot,’ Neva J said.

I was listening to a podcast on The New York Times regarding people in the last throes of dementia suddenly becoming lucid for short periods. These lucid moments are called Paradoxical or Terminal lucidity. Folks who have not spoken for months or years suddenly speak lucidly, and the speech indicates they have been following conversations around them. The phenomenon does not last, but where does it come from? If all personhood comes from our brain, and, absent a soul, our brain is nonfunctional, we are lost as individuals. Recent scientific studies on Terminal Lucidity have suggested that the Mind may be distinct from the brain. A hypothesis is that the Mind is energy that resides in the body. There are untold documented occurrences where a person has died and then been revived. The Mind was active during death and has specific memories of the event between life and death.

You see, we develop scientific explanations for what we do not fully understand. We instinctively believe we have a soul and spirit. We know because we know. We understand there is more to life than the body. People who have died and come back speak comfortingly of the pleasant surroundings they experienced and the loved ones they saw. Rather than fearing or dreading death, they look upon it as a peaceful, welcoming transition.

There is more that we do not know than what we know. We have taken the physical, the temporal, the corporal surrounding us to explain the spiritual.

‘Well, I saw Neva J last night standing at the foot of my bed,’ Billy B said. ‘She smiled and told me to be sure to wear my hat when I went out into the cold, as a lot of heat in the body escapes through the head,’ Billy B winked. ‘She said she likes her new home, and she and Aunt Wanda Vema and Guelda visit Grandma A every Monday night just as they did so many years ago,’ Billy B mused. ‘She noted that they all missed me reciting the Night Before Christmas,’ Billy B laughed. ‘You know when we first moved to Eldorado, Neva J and I went to Grandma A’s house every Monday night to visit with her and Aunt Wanda Vema and Guelda while I often performed for them,’ Billy B continued. ‘Neva J apologized for being somewhat distant in the last years of her life, saying she was not herself,’ Billy B recounted. ‘Neva J had Alzheimer’s disease in the last years of her life,’ Billy B whispered.

‘Don’t fear, I am on a dark journey walking in the winter woods. I do not talk much anymore; I can not find the words, but oh my, I do think of many. I hear you when you laugh and chat with me; I remember the old days when we ran and played. When I sleep, I visit with old friends. They tell me to not fear the dark woods; there is a door at the end of the woods leading to a bright sunlit day.’

MJ and I have become members of the St. Louis Art Museum. We parked in the parking garage for the first time after having visited the Museum for over 30 years. What a difference a parking garage makes in July heat. We saw an exhibit from ancient Rome. The St. Louis Art Museum advises that, to truly enjoy the exhibits, visitors should focus on one at a time and return another day for the next. I read the explanatory cards and lingered over each statue and painting to ensure maximum immersion. I know more than I did this morning. We enjoyed watching an older couple around our age attempt to back their vehicle into the parking garage space next to us. Each attempt made their vehicle more crooked in the slot. The gentleman driving reminded me of myself. We were at the door of the Museum three minutes before opening. The crooked driver and his wife said that usually the guard lets them stand inside the air conditioning rather than stand outside in 100-degree heat. Before sitting for lunch at the Panorama Restaurant, our friends were ahead of us in line. MJ asked the lady what was good, and she responded that she always gets the same thing but could not think of the name of it, to which her husband offered Waldorf Salad. MJ did not think she wanted Waldorf Salad, and I did not as well.

There was Trajan’s Column, ‘Built by the Senate to celebrate Emperor Trajan’s decisive victories in the Dacian Wars.

There was the sculpted head of a Barbarian. Barbarians was the title Romans used as a catch-all for anyone who did not speak Latin or Greek and was outside the culture of the Roman Empire.

‘Caligula is most famous for his extreme cruelty, megalomania, and bizarre extravagance during his short reign (37 – 41 AD).’ Caligula supposedly made his favorite horse a Senator. He declared himself a living god. ‘His four-year rule cemented his legacy as the archetype of a mad and unpredictable tyrant.’

In Metamorphoses, Narcissus was a hunter known for his unparalleled beauty who cruelly rejects the nymph Echo, preferring to gaze at his own reflection in a pool of water.

The Bullfrog Quartet has been practicing their song of Narcissus. They pull Narcissus from his reflection in an attempt to save him from himself.

When you point a finger at someone, the rest of your hand’s gang of five are pointing back at you. To be up today and riding high in the saddle is to be down tomorrow without a saddle. It is possible to be so full of hate for others that you are consumed by it.

‘A soft answer turneth away wrath,’ the Bible tells us. Have you ever said harsh words to someone who answered you with a kind response? Often the anger melts away. An eye for an eye leaves us all blind.

There is nothing funny about someone dying. For their loved ones, a crisis has happened. Imagine being able to watch your acquaintances when you die and being shocked at their real thoughts about you.

Hate is a vessel that can not be filled. Kindness flows down like a waterfall.

Walk a mile in my shoes, the song implores. No one knows the thoughts, challenges, and hurts of another. They may be smiling on the outside and crying on the inside. Someone you do not care for may be battling depression and thoughts of suicide. They may feel unworthy or worthless or wonder if anyone would miss them if they were gone. They have built a wall around themselves for protection against intruders. When you knock on their door, they pretend not to be home. We all have a limit on the hurts we can absorb. The saying that sticks and stones can break my bones but words will never harm me is bunk. Words kill people.

As we climb the Waterfall, reach out for the hand of the one who is ahead of you and the one who is behind. The wet rocks are slippery, slick, treacherous. We need each other desperately.