Dear Reader: As the fateful election year of 2016 began, like so many other crimson-blooded Boomers, I had begun friending, tweeting and Instagram posting. T’was fun to re-write headlines as they should have first been writ, or to heckle the pitcher from high grandstands. So easy to spit in the ocean. What else could I do?
I began to think I could think like the birds at the feeder – they would call me out if I were late with the bread heel. I would apologize. I started doodling with a “Pencil 53” stylus and iPad.
I was attempting to draw two birds – agnostic little fellows, but named Blue and Red. They would converse on a telephone line. I never got too good drawing these things. Sometimes Red had a cardinal’s eye mask – mostly not. Blue could appear without wings. But I needed therapy and it was therapeutic.
The therapy formed around heuristics from jobs, chores, sports, vaudeville and elsewhere. Some I contrived – “whatever we do will have to be doable.” Others I stole – “funny but when you find something, it’s always in the last place you look” – that came from Dagwood. You know what an aphorism is, right? It’s a gag that went to college. The booklet is called "A Wet Bird Never Flies at Night" in homage to comedian Jackie Vernon.
I put Blue and Red together in this package recently, just as another election undid the earlier one, and this Registered Democrat saw some bit of sun. But I will always remember the sweet relief of chatting with such friends who let me blather on at lengthy drone, and the good times with Blue and Red. – Jack Vaughan, Boston, 2020.
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