I'm thinking about good (mostly) things that are gone this week. A really really good thing that's gone is my Uncle Clair who died last week. He belonged to and epitomised a simpler time. He was Salt of the Earth--humble, very funny, and a good man.

The Endangered and Extinct

Polio and paper boys,

skate keys, cap guns, wooden toys,

ice cream trucks, the fountain pen,

brokers, agents, middlemen,

filmstrips, cursive, party lines,

record players, dinnertimes,

neighborhood ball, and slide projectors,

typewriter ribbons, pocket protectors,

hoppy taws and “pretty please,”

drive-in movies, “jeez Louise,”

flashbulbs, pay phones, tupperware,

time to sit and time to stare,

whistling a little bit while you work,

subway tokens, the soda jerk,

stray dog packs and plastic flowers,

Sunday drives that last for hours,

carbon paper, melamine,

the yen to be a beauty queen,

transistors and TV tubes,

crooked noses, tiny boobs,

push mowers and tin wash tubs,

recitation, ticket stubs,

jello molds and TV dinners,

screen doors, silence, 

shame and sinners.

This is a little monument I made to endangered or extinct artifacts.  It includes the wheel to a goat cart, a reel of film, records, redwood fence posts, permanent wave curlers, and other stuff.