Just clowning around
The Democrat-Gazette editorial section mentioned the recent death of Bozo the Clown, aka Gary Weir. Regardless of what might be said or written about this man, it’s well known he was fun for the children, and adults as well. And while the children watched, the adults had a break from all the children’s house activity.
I’m reminded of the ice storm we had in 1999. A friend of mine owned and operated a day-care center on Wilson Street in Malvern. When the sun finally appeared a few days after the ice, the children at the day care were outside for recess. They were protected behind a chain-link fence from the center’s parking lot. I was working outside their enclosure and trimming some low-hanging tree limbs. When I stopped the chain saw, several children had gathered alongside the fence and asked: “What’s your name?” I said Bozo. Well, they snickered and were called away from the fence and returned to the building for a quiet and warm time inside. I continued to work with the trimming and sweeping up of branches in the parking area.
Later in the afternoon with my truck loaded with rubbish and headed home, I stopped at a service station to fuel up. A lady drove up to the opposite side of my pump and just as she exited the cab, the van window near me was lowered by the children inside. Three of them yelled: “Hey, Bozo.” The lady nearly fainted and stormed out at the kids to close the window and be quiet. They complied but were observed to yet be snickering. The lady immediately came to me with an apology and said she didn’t know what had possessed the kids to say such a thing. I told her the story and that I had told them that morning that I was Bozo. She was flabbergasted and I quit laughing long enough to tell her no apology was necessary and I hoped she wouldn’t crash on the kids for speaking to me because I was the reason they did. Yes, children can be funny; mamas can be embarrassed!
PAUL GOZA
Malvern
Brought me only pain
I want to tell my story about a particular gun. In 1980, I was suffering from panic attacks and had a phobia about home break-ins. My husband hated guns and would never have bought one, so I took my own money, went to Wal-Mart, and purchased a shotgun.
That shotgun sat unused in our bedroom closet for about seven years. When our first child was born, we removed it from the house, and my husband took it down to his law office. In 1987, my husband, who was basically a fine man, shot himself in the head with the shotgun.
I went through times sometimes blaming myself for buying the gun. However, I certainly had not wanted him to kill himself, and he made his own decision. I am 70 years old. My only experience with a gun brought me only pain and resulted in my raising three children without a father.
My point is that no one really “needs” a gun. I never used it; I never felt the slightest desire to shoot an animal with it. That idea is abhorrent to me. I never needed it to defend my home.
Our country needs to decide if it cares more about an ancient document or the lives of its own citizens. There has been enough pain.
CATHERINE LAMB
Little Rock
Deeper into the abyss
Regarding Mr. John Littlejohn’s admirably expressed letter (“Darkness and despair”) in which he takes to task Messrs. Paul Greenberg and Russ Roberts for troubling deaf heaven with bootless cries, I couldn’t help but notice that he likewise offered no solutions, woefully inadequate or not, to a situation that it seems to me he would describe in similar terms. It isn’t entirely clear to me if he feels the angst voiced by Greenberg and Roberts is or is not justified. His final question—Is sinking deeper into this abyss inevitable?—suggests to me that he pictures us already in it. If that is the case, then I think the answer must be “yes.” The abyss he invokes has, by definition, no bottom. If you think you’ve “bottomed out,” just look down. If you are falling, there is nothing to stop you.
Nothing, that is, except divesting yourself of the density which makes you susceptible to gravity. There is no purpose served by staring into the abyss. It sucks the light out of your eyes. If you perceive yourself as “in” the abyss, do not deceive yourself into thinking there is a possibility of climbing out. This abyss has no walls, there is nothing to “climb.”
Bearing in mind that all direction is relative to one’s present position, that there is no absolute east or up or left but only contextual proximity to or separation from some singularity or another, it’s still true that if you can fall you can rise. That resurrection is accomplished by making yourself perpendicular. In one of his novels (my poor memory thinks it was in the “Perelandra Trilogy”: Till We Have Faces?), C.S. Lewis suggested that the gates of hell are locked on the inside. Rise up and walk, away from the madness.
STANLEY G. JOHNSON
Little Rock
A refreshing change
I would like to thank Barry Thomas for his letter, “A promise of autumn.” It was refreshing to see something in this section of the paper that was not about politics, religion or why someone else was wrong.
While I do enjoy the morning, I tend to reflect more in the early evening. When the sun has made its arc across the sky and is setting in the west. And it’s not the call of farm-fresh eggs that draw me back, but the once-round red grape from California or possibly Argentina.
Cheers, Mr. Thomas.
TOMMY TILLER
Fayetteville
Not getting message
It seems to me that Donald Trump did not get the message. The people need food, water, homes, electricity, meds—not paper towels.
That goes to show you; he is only for his own glory, not to do the will of the people or tend to the needs of the people. He still on TV as a man, not as the president of this country. He is undoing all the good that helps the needy, the poor, children and the elderly, but he is still not getting the message.
He needs to do more to help the people, not the rich or those that have more than they can spend in a lifetime.
JEANNIE SMITH
North Little Rock
Editorial on 10/15/2017