My Dear Cousin - Pray for that Child

8th June 2021

My Dear Cousin,

I should mention at some point that (Pony Girl) had a child. I guess you know that, but I’ve never met him. She didn’t want him and her chances of having a child were always low, but what can happen will and she had a son.

(Pickle) has told me that he looks just like me. Or rather he looks just like I did at his age. He is the picture of our kind. It’s funny how my roots come clear at times. I wonder what he’s like or rather what he will be like, but then knowing my family he’ll turn out broken like the rest of us.

(Pony Girl) has never spoken of him to me and only (Pickle) has mentioned him and is love for the boy is somewhat worrying. (Pickle) killed mother’s chickens in play and burst blood vessels in his dog’s ears. He can be a dangerous man to be around.

If the boy knows of me at all, or ever will, I know (Pony Girl) will speak ill of me and so poison him against me. It is better that he never know me. Let me be a ghost in his mind even if he thinks of me as some demon.

I do recall once (Pony Girl)’s mother in law coming to my house and babbling on about if I wanted a choice in anything I should pay for my own repairs. I doubt she was told that I had been promised money for college and was only trying to get what was mine. I know no one told her that I had been told I would never get my money out of the house.

You can turn anyone into a villain if you don’t tell the world what you did to them. (Pony Girl) can really spin a yard of how horrible a man I am if you don’t mention the fact that she tried to turn me into her servant. (Yule) told the world what a bad son I was without mentioning how little he did as a parent.

So I will never see my nephew, and he could be better off without me complicating his life. Being an only child he could become a narcissist like his mother.

I remember that I once found a cat that (Pony Girl) adopted. She took the cat when she moved out and once brought it back when she went on vacation. That cat had been a loving animal when it left my home. The last time I saw her she was mean and would hiss at anyone who touched her.

Pray for that child,



Richard Leland Neal

Love for Pools

2^nd June 2015

Dear Cassi,

I’ve always had a love for pools which is no wonder in the state of California because of the heat, but did I ever tell you about the pool I had as a kid? It was one of those above ground jobs with steel sides and an uneven bottom. I loved that pool. I would come home from school and jump in wearing nothing but my jockeys and for most of my young life the water went up to my chin making me prance around.

I did very little swimming, but I loved the water so that I would just do laps walking from one end of the pool to the other. There was a time that the pool was heated, but the heater broke, and then we took it apart. I remember it being full of dust and old plastic bracelets. The base had been made of loose red bricks which became toys once unearthed.   

I used to build temples and army bases of those old bricks. A few I crushed back into dust, but why I couldn’t tell you. I never knew how sick my mother was until I was nine, and she never had the time to be there for me. I remember my happiest moments as a child being alone with my thoughts. I was a world onto myself back then and in a way we all are now.

You can figure that’s part of my keeping to myself now days, but there is much more to it than that condition. In the darkness of our lives we should let our mind grow distinguished and wise but keep our hearts young and able.

Well, one day I came home to find the side of my pool burst open and the back lawn teaming with insects floating in the chlorinated water. That was the worst day of my life at that point, but I didn’t know it yet.

Know what you have, little sister,

Richard Leland Neal

Pointless - Rowan Atkinson

Fix it Right or Leave it Be

25^th October 2012

Dear Cassi,

       

As a point I have come to say ‘fix it proper or leave it be

if it still works,’ and this idea has once again come into play with my kitchen cabinets.

       

These sections of wood have stood poorly in the decades of their use but I fault them none as they have been hard used. The three daemons in child form, of which I was one, that inhabited this old house cracked the bricks of the walls so the fact that this wood still holds is impressive.

       

Things that have failed in these cabinets, however, the bits that hold them shut. I can tell that more than one generation of thought has gone into holding those doors closed. Some have magnetic seals and some spring seals but neither had taken to stand the test of time.

  

     

Some weeks ago my neighbor added new spring latches to the old wood to hold these aged sentinels shut. This had no impact on cabinet closing. The old worn doors just slide open as they have for more than twenty years. This was a small failure but as it took a few dollars and did nothing to change things it was a bad idea.

       

I had asked my neighbor not to do it but rather to get the self closing hinges that would permanently deal with the problem. He could have not worked on my cabinets at all and I would have preferred that to this situation.

Stay safe, little sister,

Richard Leland Neal