Rev. Erudite Redneck, B.S., B.S., M.A., M.Div.

By The Erudite (who does not profess to be a poet).

I stir first by a tad. Don’t get up out of bed.
Dose awhile. Clock erupts. What’s it say? Must get up!
Where’s the kid? Did she rise? Atta girl! Very wise!
Time to go! Must load truck. Times’ wastin’! Oh, this sucks.
Rained last night! It’s a mess. Rain today! Storms, no less.
Loadin’ stuff. Watch the mud! Too late now! That poor rug.
Wife is mad. Don’t blame her. I’m so bad. Never learn.
Not just mud. It’s so red. Looks like blood. Means I’m dead.
First things first. Gotta fly. Hit the road. Say bye-bye
To the dogs.
They don’t know she’ll be gone. Will she be
So diff’rent when she comes ’round again that they’ll be
Strangers or old friends that she barely just recalls?

(Prob’ly not. She’s so strong. Unlike me. I’m so wrong
To dare compare this cool chicklet to me at all.)

‘Nuff of that. To the road! Watch the tarp. Quite a load.
Stop the truck. Fix the tarp. Go again. Damn that tarp!
Stop again. Fix the tarp one more time. Damn it all.
Loose again. Take it off. Wad it up. Rain lays off.
Highway hums. Ramp ahead leads to the longest stretch
Of road in my dear home state of Oklahoma:
51 east off 35 to OSU.
17 miles, it says, on into Stillwater.
It seems to take an hour ev’ry time.
I know well.
Twenty years now I’ve been taking it.
Never got used to this, all the stuff that’s grown up
West of town. Used to be nothing much past Cow Creek.

(Oh man, do I sound like an old fart now, or what?
Gets better. We’re not even to the campus yet.)

I forgot. Moving in the first time is hard work.
What to bring? Does she know? Not really, so she hauls
Ev’ry thing that comes to her and her roommates’ mind.
Three TVs! Stereos! Computers! Snacks for all!
Enough towels? Yes, enough to dry up Theta Pond.
At least they all had the sense to think ahead and
Realize that one fridge was enough for them all.
Sharing space? Also hard, more for an only child
Who’s had her own room and everybody else’s.
But she’ll learn.
We all have to when it comes our time.
Test of life is what this is, the first of many
More to come. But she’ll pass it with flying colors.

(Bennett Hall -- home away from home to me back then.
But for her? She just sees a big old-time hotel!)

There’s an elevator? Central air? Coffee bar?
Can all this be for real? “In my day” – hold your tongue!
Hell, no way. This is fun. Rub it in. They all need
To know how good things are compared to my time here
“Way, way” back, “long ago” in 1984.
Ah – gets old. Just like me. It’s her time.
“In my time” – what’s the use? Diff’rent strokes. Diff’rent youth.
Kids today – here it comes -- are so spoiled. Holy smoke.
Really do sound just like ev’rybody’s parents!
Anyway,
We all really did tramp up and down
Flights of stairs, four in all, ev’ry day, and we lived.
And we liked it that way! Ha! Ahem. Not really.

(Forgive me, girl, I’m allowed some bellyachin’
You can have your own rites of passage. I have mine.)

Hauling done. Room a mess. Hugs all ‘round. Then we left.
Old way home. Past the place where I found my own ways
Of learning outside class. Crossed some lines. Showed my ass.
Oh, I learned the hard way not to do things just ’cause,
Well, you know, just because you know you fin’ly can.
Tumbleweed. Drank too much. Danced all night. Found some luck.
I don’t mean what you think, what I mean is a ride
To the dorm with someone smarter than this big dumb
Country boy who’d hardly yet even been to town.
But I think:
Don’t put her in your place, because she seems to know –
How to say? – how to go, what to do, growing up
Better than I knew then -- or know now, in actual fact.

(Baby bird? First flight out? Mom and me worry some.
But day one? Bottom line: Smooth. Only little pouts.)

END