My Old Neighbor Thurman Prescott
Thurman Prescott would put on shaggy cowboy pants and strut about in his backyard, snapping feebly at tin cans with a bullwhip. Other times, in the summer, the Prescotts would lay out a big canvas drop cloth and Thurman and his father would be out there all afternoon in the hot sun, wrestling. The father was a huge and hairy man, bundled obscenely in a singlet. Mrs. Prescott would stand on the picnic table with a whistle in her teeth, refereeing. Old man Prescott had been a funeral director once upon a time, but controversial, and had gotten out of the business. No one seemed entirely sure what he was up to, but he was one of those small town eccentrics who fancied himself a painter. He cemented his strange reputation in town by entering a black velvet nude --clearly Mrs. Prescott-- in the country fair art show. Mrs. Prescott was a big woman, and the painting made no bones about that fact, and as a young boy standing before that painting great questions were being tattooed across the top of my skull.
A Story From A Stranger On The Bus
My mother didn't see anyone for over two years after my father died, and then one day out of the blue she says to me, He keeps bees. Who? I ask, and she says, This fellow I'm seeing. That wasn't enough preparation, the bee information. Let me just say this: this man was a good 300 pounds and I'd say that's a charitable estimate. The first time I saw him he was waddling in the backyard in his bee suit, coming right towards me. He just up and moved his bees into our yard. Not fifteen minutes later, over iced tea, he says to me, I've always considered myself a prophet crying out in the wilderness.
Excuse me? I sat right there and watched the prophet eat almost an entire strawberry pie. God, it was awful. My father had been a mild-mannered pharmacist with a pretty decent sense of humor, and here was this bee keeper sprawled in my father's old recliner and saying, Yes, son, this country still has some hard lessons to learn. And my mother chimes in, Oh, he's absolutely right on that. He's got some secret information that will knock your socks off.
The Poseidon Adventure, Part III
Don't be afraid, the organ player kept repeating, leaning into the microphone. No reason to be afraid. It wasn't very reassuring, all things considered. The lights were swaying from the ceiling, throwing off fat sparks. I watched a lunch box roll the entire length of the room. A banana spilled from the lunch box and bounced three feet in the air before skidding under a booth in the corner. Someone said they saw a goldfish literally sprung from the aquarium to the floor. The organ player just kept right on playing, even after the guitar player and drummer left the stage and scurried away downstairs. All night the band had been playing theme songs from television programs, and the audience had been getting a kick out of trying to guess the songs and sing along. When the organ player said Don't be afraid, or, no, it was more assertive and even less comforting than that, it was You musn't be afraid, at that very moment he was playing the theme from "The Jeffersons." My date was a little bit drunk and was trying to throw nuggets of sweet and sour chicken in the air and catch them in her open mouth, a trick made even more difficult by the swaying lamps.
A razor that can sense the individual needs of your face.
--Gillette commercial
Your car knows.
--Gasoline commercial
6:52:39 PM 
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