ARE YOU A DOG PERSON OR A CAT PERSON

                                       ARE YOU A DOG PERSON OR A CAT PERSON?

                                  HARRY THOMAS DANVERS

 

                    These were the elucidating words from the Cultural Affairs Officer from the American Embassy, in awarding the outstanding prize for the outstanding artist, in some corner of what might be considered a Central American existence.

                   But; what does that mean? Ostensibly the difference between a man a rat!

                   The outstanding prize, for the outstanding artist was given to a dog person, for it was a staunch rule in the American Embassy, to favor that breed of companionship. This was determined on the fact that a dog could be trained to heel, while a cat was an independent entity and most likely its companion might share the same opinion. Thus the former could be trained to heel to government rules, while the latter had to be rejected out of hand.

                  Exactly how all of this coincided with the outstanding prize for the outstanding artist, was not clarified: but it was inferred that the omniscient and omnipresent forces were also at work at dismembering the world of art, with as much deliberation as open warfare.

                 The outstanding prize, for the outstanding artist, from the outstanding country, was given with great pomp, considering the circumstance and then all the said animals then went home to roost.

                 The lesson to be learned here, was that one had to be circumspect, when asked the question: ARE YOU A DOG PERSON OR A CAT PERSON?

I HAVE NO IDEA

                                          "I HAVE NO IDEA! "

                                      HARRY THOMAS DANVERS

                     Was the standard answer, to the question of which no one knew anything about? Yet, it radiated a kind of herd poison that infected the masses into relinquishing their individuality. It was frightening in its classic repetition.

                     They all wanted a change, for their dismal economic situation was less than lean and waning. Some swerved to the right and others to the left, while those in the middle were trampled down as being mere spectators.

                     Military might to control the situation was thwarted by the staggering number of individuals, who would have to be butchered. There were almost not enough bullets for that. Besides; the other side was armed with determination, as well as Molotov cocktails.

                   Thus, the world leaders began to disappear and everywhere their absence created anarchy. What was worse was that it was not isolated, rather universal. The beast in man had reached its full potential. The black abyss was before humanity, just as the backdrop of space which surrounded the planet, was equally impenetrable.

                  And all around this sphere of darkness, there remained a light. No, there were many lights of luminous intensity. Not a few, rather tens of thousands which had already been counted.

                 They did not communicate with the restless masses. It remained that there was no one to answer their question and if there would have been, the answer would have inevitably been the same…"I HAVE NO IDEA!

                     

COME SEE OUR TREE

                                                          COME SEE OUR TREE!

                                                   HARRY THOMAS DANVERS

 

                         It was a difficult problem to choose the right Christmas tree, which would go under the bay window in our middle class home, in the suburbs of Pittsburgh.

                        Difficult, because there were many specimens of spruce; dethroned at the base and disposed upon a parking lot, where all the neighbors deliberated on the same subject. How would the bare tree be decorated below the same bay window in all the look alike habitations, in the said housing plan?

                       My father was a salesman, so he knew all the jokes and antidotes. He was a pitch man, who knew how to sell his product. I don't think he was particularly religious, although he had a catholic sense about the necessity to sell. During the said religious season, this was obvious.

                      It was all glitter and glitch and people were happy because they had their yearend bonuses, from the large corporations, which they represented. It was my father's bonhomie, which required him to say something. So he did. His stock phrase was: "Come see our tree!"

                     And now? Now it's all plastic; waterproof, fireproof and well deleted from the original purpose, although his words still rock me to my foundation. "Come see our tree…"

                    God bless his memory.

THE SIDE SHOW

                                                         THE SIDE SHOW

                                                  HARRY THOMSAS DANVERS

                                   "There's a sucker born every minute!"stormed B.T Barnum.  He was the inventor of the three ring circus, under the Big Top.

                              The first time I went to see the said phenomenon was with my father in Philadelphia. I was about ten years of age at the time and the whole thing was a strange combination of human and animal species; brought from distant continents and flavored with the scent of their own grandeur. It all consisted of straw; sand, dirt and the displacement of all that under the Big Top.

                             I remember it was raining and therefore the area was difficult to traverse. My father had to help me around the mud and we sat in bleachers, which were not first class seats. They were at the top and nothing more than painted, gray planks, the kind found in high school football stadiums in the late fifties and early sixties.

                            It was tremendous; at least for a little shaver like me, for there were three huge rings, of distinctive shows, which I could not watch at the same time.  I tried to concentrate my interest at the most outstanding, but since B.T. had a knack for talent, he had them all blazing with an international flare and I was wont to dart my attention from the lion trainer, to the man on the flying trapeze.

                           I was about to ask my father if he would take me to the side show, when the elephants stampeded. Almost everyone thought it was a part of a novel act, but the truth came out the next day in the Philadelphia Inquirer.  Through the negligence of the trainers, the elephants had gone wild and if they had not steered them through the openings, he might have overturned the bandstand seats and toppled us all over into primordial oblivion.

                            It didn't happen, of course, but the side show closed up after that.  I don't know if it was because of the rain or for the fact that the elephants had to be rounded up.

                           But, missing the side show had always bothered me, even after I migrated to Silicon Valley and made my first million in the computer game. There I met a different kind of three ring circus, but good old B. T. was always present in my mind and I managed to make a killing with a new kind of sucker.

                           Yet the side show continued to haunt me, for I entertained periphial vision of expanding my gains, with congruent enterprises, sustained by the Big Top I had already established; complete with its three rings.

                         Everything went well for a few years, for like the three rings; I had invested in an international spectrum. The Big Top remained strong and active and I was defraying gradual loses from the main company.

                         It was on my seventieth birthday that the elephants stampeded. The Stock Market took a dive and all that I had invested was lost in a minute.

                        I was left with my skivvies and a house on Long Island. I sold my Van Gogh's and Picassos and was left without servants and a swimming pool without water.

                        I realized that this was the main event, but couldn't help but consider what might have happened, if I would have attended the side show.