in 1975, 1976, 1977
How can that be conjured
in a different time,
another place
Like all I’d need to do is close my eyes
and be there
Late afternoon or evening sun acts like a time machine
and once again
I’m ten years old
without a care in the world
Juror #18
I had never been called to serve before
I had no idea what to expect.
As it turned out, taking public transport was the best part.
The rest of the day leaves me feeling weary.
But not as worn as juror #18.
She was pregnant,
what she told the judge as soon as she could. But he paid no attention;
she was jury fodder
like the rest of us.
“Do you think severe morning sickness
cramps and bleeding would preclude you from serving?”
Was he serious, I wondered.
Why didn’t he just let that woman leave?
More questions, defense and prosecution,
more blah blah blah.
More blah blah blah than I could ever shake a stick at,
then juror #18 asked permission to be excused
to the restroom.
She didn’t make it,
getting sick, on her knees,
into a waste can
three feet from where I sat.
Then she was excused, but it was too late.
She shouldn’t have been there in the first place.
My previous view of the criminal justice system was average;
checks, balances, etc etc etc.
But I am a person,
not jury fodder.
That woman
with life inside her
wasn’t given the courtesy the defendant was shown.
(And let’s not forget how many people were late, coming back from a two-hour lunch.)
This is a rant, at the end of a long day.
Juror #18 was excused, so was I.
But I won’t forget her anytime soon.
We Call Her Gracie
For that’s her name;
Gracie Allen rose.
Rose isn’t capitalized
as it’s not actually part of her name.
But a flower by another
could be misconstrued
as a daisy, a carnation, a lily.
However besides being a deceased entertainer
and wife to the late George Burns
Gracie Allen
is also the name of one of the roses
in our backyard.
The others don’t have monikers
but they have histories –
two came with the house,
one of which was transplanted
(and survived)
in order for an A/C unit to be installed.
Four in the front yard sort of came together,
two fragrant
two not.
White and red, yellow and red
all beautiful.
Something special about roses
whether they grow as if long-stemmed
(red fragrant)
or prolific and odorless (the other red which
lives near the garage, surrounded by
golden California poppies).
Gracie is a cluster rose, with petite
blooms and a scent to die for.
Swirls of yellow and red
make her one of the prettiest around.
She lives near a short peach tree
and another tall rose bush
sporting singular buds that will be a
peachy-pink when open.
(But that has nothing to with the
neighboring peach tree.)
Another bush sits a few feet away;
it’s also pink, smells nice.
On the other side of the yard
grows a wild cluster rose
fighting geraniums for attention.
It offers a plethora of blooms,
as if wanting to be noticed
so far away from the rest.
But I always come back to Gracie
for that lovely name
her spectacular colours
but mostly her charming personality
which is a blend of scent, hue,
bloom potential, and shape of flower.
She’s not tall,
will probably be overshadowed by the
peach tree one day.
Yet she’s sweet,
unassuming,
willing to proffer some of the loveliest roses
I’ve ever seen.
I never enjoyed Burns & Allen
but for as much as George loved his Gracie
I adore mine.
The Pancake That Saved Silicon Valley
As soon as she saw the first special of the day
she knew something was coming.
A little bit of nirvana
she smiled to her husband –
graham cracker chocolate chip pancakes
with fresh strawberries.
“Oh my goodness
I know what I’m having for breakfast.”
They sat,
the place deserted
but then it was 6.25 in the morning
Sunday morning.
They had gotten up late
for them
yet it was still early enough
that only Melissa the waitress
and Robert the cook/owner
and his staff
were present.
And a husband and wife
who inadvertently
saved the entirety of Silicon Valley
on that particular Sunday morning.
They sat down, chuckling
as Melissa didn’t bother with menus –
the wife would have a half-order
two pancakes instead of three
while the husband had most of his usual:
two eggs over easy
extra grilled onions
over cottage potatoes
and wheat toast
but no bacon.
The other oddity
was that he ordered a hot chocolate.
He never had anything to drink
but water
while his wife asked for a double latte
when normally she had a single.
One might assume it was those
out of the ordinary beverages that altered
events.
But they were just red herrings.
It was the pancake,
one pancake,
as the wife only ever ate one.
Two would have been too much,
and besides, there was always their sleeping youngest daughter
who might want it.
Maybe, but if not, the wife
would eat it later
perhaps during the Giants-Padres
game that wouldn’t have taken
place if not for the one
pancake that was devoured.
One little, well, not so little,
but in the grand scheme it was
a pretty darn innocuous
pancake; one pancake would
rise above all else,
and rescue a whole valley.
But first, let us examine the pancake –
it was the top pancake
of course,
with syrup and butter on the side.
But the wife never employed
those extras.
“They’d overwhelm the chocolate,”
she told her husband
as Sandra the other early Sunday morning waitress arrived,
wishing them a good morning.
The pancake was topped with sliced fresh
and otherwise unadulterated strawberries
that were festooned with chocola
te chips
melting from the heat of the pancake.
Chocolate chips swirled within
the pancake, mostly settling in the center
which had turned into a gooey but delicious
mess by the time the wife had worked her way
to that part of it.
She compared that pancake to the other breakfast highlight of her life,
two Christmas Eves ago
at that same café;
chocolate chip pancakes
topped with crushed red and green candy canes.
She liked a little carbohydrate with her sugar
on Sunday mornings,
she joked to the
older man who joined them,
the only ones besides Melissa, Robert and his crew,
and Sandra.
They were the only witnesses to
the pancake that saved Silicon Valley.
Once breakfast was eaten,
conversations shared,
coffee and cocoa sipped,
the husband paid the check,
left a tip,
good Sunday morning to all exchanged.
The extra pancake,
which later served its purpose,
was tucked into a large styrofoam box,
held by the wife
as the husband drove them home.
They didn’t live near the café, which was
nestled in the beginnings of the Santa Cruz Mountains,
but still at the bottom of the valley.
It was there the trouble started,
a rogue car blocking both lanes
of Highway 17
before it turned into Interstate 880.
Yet, as it was still early,
barely seven a.m.,
the couple’s vehicle was the only other car on the road.
No one sat in the parked average-looking sedan,
the driver’s door opened,
the engine running.
Smoke billowed from under
the hood,
wafting into the crisp morning air.
“Well, what now?”
the wife asked,
strangely not worried.
She was running on heavenly pancake fuel;
only their own car suffering a flat
might have bothered her, just for the nuisance of
having to change the tire.
Her husband rolled down his window,
for reasons still unknown.
“Layla” boomed from the stopped car,
the guitar-driven intro
as if the song had just begun.
That set the tone,
as a catastrophe in the making unfolded.
Now usually the wife would be prone to
rolling her eyes
shaking her head
shrugging.
She wasn’t the most patient person,
well, she could be,
but she didn’t easily suffer fools.
Yet the pancake had been so tasty,
satisfying,
perfect actually.
If not for that chocolate chip strawberry pancake
percolating not only in her tummy
but easing its happy way through veins and arteries
the day would have been very, very different.
Unknown to the couple
and everyone else on the planet,
aliens had picked that morning
to tease humanity
choosing Silicon Valley
for its wide variety of inhabitants
and its technological pulse.
The North Koreans might think they were in charge
but the aliens hovering over the southern tip of the
San Francisco Bay Area
could have obliterated all of North Korea
with little more than a blink of their eyes
if they had eyes.
Instead their focus was the very southern
edge of the most
advanced collection
of persons
and hardware
on all of Earth.
Weapons were superfluous;
The future was all about innovation.
Yet, the aliens had no way to measure
the power of chocolate
and fresh strawberries
shared in a quiet, favored
location
with an additional dose of milky caffeine.
Even more unrealized
was the capacity
for good
endowed upon one woman’s
often cynical heart.
“Stop the car,” the wife said.
“We are stopped,” her husband sighed.
“No,” she grinned,
over which the aliens took note.
“Kill the engine.”
“What? Are you serious?
This could be…”
A litany of disasters filled the car,
but the wife gently shook her head.
The aliens paid attention to that too,
surprised at her willingness to investigate
a situation destined to stir a small initial panic
that would insidiously infect
the entirety
of the most plugged-in
segment of human society.
New Yorkers or Los Angelinos
or Tokyo residents
might assume they owned that title.
But it was here
in Silicon Valley
where social media
and a well-cultured
yet fully exploitable
techie indifference reigned.
The wife got out of the car,
then looked back at her husband,
who gripped the steering wheel.
Her extra pancake,
like insurance, rested safely inside
styrofoam
on the car’s dashboard.
Then she faced the stalled but still running vehicle,
Eric Clapton’s aching voice
pouring from the driver’s open door.
“Anyone there?” she called,
pleasing the aliens.
She assumed someone was in the car,
waiting to strike,
to attack, to…
“Layla,” she sang,
taking the aliens’ attention from their
nefarious machinations.
In the realm of space,
their ploy would later be tried
by a court of other life forms.
But at that moment,
no one in the galaxy had noticed their deeds,
which in the grand scheme
wasn’t more than illicit graffiti sprayed on freeway signs.
The wife trilled along with Clapton
as if she was alone in the world,
unafraid and enthralled.
The aliens weren’t at all prepared
for her boldness in the face of potential and unforeseen tragedy
nor the beauty and strength of her voice.
“Layla,” she continued,
along with Derek and the Dominoes, as she fearlessly approached
the car,
smoke still rising from its purring engine.
In later space-court testimony,
the aliens’ appointed attorney claimed his clients were only looking to test
humanity,
and merely one small section of it.
Grand-scale warfare hadn’t been their goal;
although if their strategy had been executed properly,
the prosecuting lawyer rebutted,
over two million people would have been killed,
half of those in San Jose alone.
As these facts were presented to the jury
the aliens squirmed in their chairs,
their faces, or what sufficed as faces,
pointed toward the floor.
&nb
sp; “If not for the actions
or more correctly the reaction
of one female
an entire region of
humans
would have been obliterated.”
The prosecutor
then faced
the defendants,
offering a nasty glare
which the jury and judge
could not see.
Then the prosecutor looked at the judge;
“If not for her calm,
albeit chocolate chip pancake
With…” The prosecutor retrieved his notes.
“With,” he said forcefully,
“fresh and unsweetened strawberries,
death and wanton destruction
would have engulfed the most
technologically savvy spot on Earth.”
Some in the gallery sniggered,
mumbling to themselves:
Some techie hub my ass.
Others chanted Lay-la, Lay-la
or Clapton is God.
The presiding judge banged her gavel:
“Order in the court!”
All quieted, eyes on the defendants
who like the jurors
and the lawyers
and the judge
could not believe
how utter mayhem
had been thwarted
by the simple joy
produced by a single
chocolate chip pancake
laced with strawberries
no butter or syrup involved.
Attorneys for both sides
proffered their closing arguments –
the defense claimed their clients
had eaten too many intergalactic Twinkies
and weren’t in charge of their faculties.
The prosecutor reminded jurors
how the woman, fueled on human consumable bliss,
had confidently walked to the open driver’s door,
singing “Layla” in a loud voice
then turned off the car,
silencing the music
but not herself.
She continued singing,
the lawyer said,
with no musical accompaniment
as if to God himself,
alerting space authorities
attending to a disturbance on Mars.
As the woman stepped away from the still-smoking sedan,
galactic cops far overhead
surrounded the aliens’ craft,
severing their connection to the vehicle blocking the road.
To the wife’s, her husband’s, and those in a few SUVs
idling behind the couple’s car
total surprise
the wayward vehicle became elevated, drifting from the freeway
into the sky, then
disappearing from view.
The woman stood motionless for only seconds
then glanced at her own car,
noting the styrofoam container on the dashboard.
“What in the hell was in that pancake?”
she said aloud, smiling as she walked back to where
her husband
and others
were waiting
wondering if what they had witnessed was real.
The jury deliberated for less than ten minutes.
Guilty, the judge pronounced
as the charged aliens sighed,
led away from the courtroom to a chorus of jeers
and a few lingering shouts of
Clapton is God.
Meanwhile, back in Silicon Valley,
in the bottom of the fourth inning,
the Giants at bat,
the wife removed that extra pancake from
the toaster oven.