What is it? ... I dunno ! - by TPO

What is it? ... I dunno !

[ Ending and Beginning with a Bang !]
by TPO
===================

This is a true story, proving how fascinating the mind of a six year old could be.
Children do think logically!

A teacher was reading the story of the Three Little Pigs to her class.

She came to the part of the story where first pig was trying to gather the building materials for his home.  She read:  "And so the pig went up to the man with the wheelbarrow full of  straw and said: 'Pardon me sir, but may I have some of that straw to build my house?' "

The teacher paused then asked the class; "And what do you think the man said?"

One little boy raised his hand and said very matter-of-fact like ... " I think the man would have said - 'I'll be a son of a bitch!!  A Talking pig!' "

The teacher had to leave the room.

Adolescence - by Hénock Gugsa

Adolescence

 – by Hénock Gugsa –

Discoveries continued, but at a much faster pace.

I was doing well in school, I joined my school’s boy scouts club for a couple of years. This was character-building time. My new-found love was reading, I loved hanging out in libraries. Another obsession was going to the movies every weekend. In fact, my dad used to say that I was using his money to enrich the white man (the ferenjii) both there and in foreign lands. He was right about that; but I was also benefiting from the fact that my language skills were growing at a rapid pace.

These were the "teen years" ... adolescence had arrived ... new problems began to appear and they seemed super impossible to tackle!  To name a few --- shyness, social awkwardness, and complete ignorance of the new social role.  My friends and I were all in the same boat, we were what you would call today: nerds !  Some of the disadvantages were outside our control.  For instance, the school we went to was not co-ed ... and that led to complete ignorance of the opposite sex.  But then again, even the whole society was segregationist when it came to genders.  There was always a kind of ingrained male chauvinism (machismo) which meant that hardly any friendship existed between boys and girls.

Yet, however frustrating life seemed at times, I was simultaneously realizing that time was flying by at a faster pace than ever before.  Books opened my eyes a lot, I learned more from them than any living person in my sphere.  I was now sensing that more adventures and enjoyment of life were just over the looming horizon ... a new beginning, perhaps.

By the time I was eighteen, I was fluent in English and had a good working start in French. And to cap everything, I had the great fortune and privilege of coming to the United States for my last year of high school. I had at last come to the States, as an exchange student, at the tender age of seventeen; and it was my first big adventure in life!

[In my next installment in this series, I hope to be tackling my "adulthood" years.]

The Afterlife - by Louis Jenkins

The Afterlife
by Louis Jenkins
(a Minnesotan poet born in Enid, OK , October 28, 1942)
================================================

Older people are exiting this life as if it were a movie… "I didn’t get it," they are saying.

He says, "It didn’t seem to have any plot."

"No." she says, "it seemed like things just kept coming at me. Most of the time I was confused… and there was way too much sex and violence."

"Violence anyway," he says.

"It was not much for character development either; most of the time people were either shouting or mumbling. Then just when someone started to make sense and I got interested, they died. Then a whole lot of new characters came along and I couldn’t tell who was who."

"The whole thing lacked subtlety."

"Some of the scenery was nice."

"Yes."

They walk on in silence for a while. It is a summer night and they walk slowly, stopping now and then, as if they had no particular place to go.

They walk past a streetlamp where some insects are hurling themselves at the light, and then on down the block, fading into the darkness.

She says, "I was never happy with the way I looked."

"The lighting was bad and I was no good at dialogue," he says.

"I would have liked to have been a little taller," she says.

_________________________________________________

source: www.yourdailypoem.com

From North of the Cities (Will o’ the Wisp Books, 2007) © Louis Jenkins.

~ used with the author’s permission ~

"Hallelujah" ~ sung by PS22 (New York City, 2015)

"Hallelujah" 

~ sung by PS22 (New York City, 2015)~

===================

PS22's wonderful rendition of Leonard Cohen;s "Hallelujah" is headed by 4th -grader Elisha ....

 PS22 is an elementary public school in Graniteville, Staten Island, New York City.

"Said a blade of grass ..." ~ by Khalil Gibran

Médina, (Dakar) Senegal - by TPO

Médina, a poor neighborhood in Dakar, Senegal 

- by TPO -
-~~~~~~~ // ~~~~~~~

Médina, a poor neighborhood in Dakar, Senegal, has become a draw for art fans!

 

Conan in Ghana ~ by TPO

Conan O'Brien in Ghana 

~ by TPO ~

Cultural Differences !!! - by TPO

Cultural Differences ! *

-- Americans share the things they didn’t realize were typically American until they traveled. --

Observation # 4:
Ask a cop how he’s doing here in the States, and you’ll get tased!

It is very different in Paris.  I Walked up to a security guard at the library adjacent to Centre Pompidou, which is where we were headed and asked in English if he could tell us where the entrance to the museum was.

He stared at me blankly. I started stammering, trying to repeat myself in French, when he said very sarcastically, “ ‘ALLO? ‘OW are you DO-EENG?!” ....  You see, I had not first offered a greeting before asking my question!

In large American cities, public servants and other people providing services to tourists are often not looking for such niceties. They want you to make it as quick as possible and keep moving.
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* Source: RoughMaps