* An unexamined maxim is not worth living * This maxim came to mind as I was examining the maxims that have guided me the last forty years. Sadly, albeit perhaps to the pleasure of Pooh-Bah Maverick, these maxims turned out to be "almost maxims". These falsemaxims are ...
* If twineing don't fibble, if fibbling don't twine. *
* The bird of time has but a short way to flutter,
And Lo! The bird is on the wing.
And while that bird is recklessly flying
the bird in the bush is safe and abiding. *
*Honesty is a policy. *
Today I am confused. I have no love life and I have no friends. I am a stranger in a strange land. See there, I speak in cliche`s. In fact my whole life is a cliche but I am so confused I don't know which cliche it is. I need a change of maxims because I am a desperate man and desperate men do desperate things. But before I do let me tell you a story...
Many, but not that many, years ago a young boy that was me, listened every saturday morning to a radio show entitled -THE SATURDAY MORNING RADIO SHOW STARRING "HAPPY HAL" BURNS, THE HAPPIEST MAN IN BIRMINGHAM. Happy Hal was a breed apart. He always wore a flashy cowboy outfit and a big white cowboy hat and was always, always, smiling. His happiness soon proved to be contagious, he quickly became the most listened to radioman in Birmingham, not to mention Jefferson County. But alas, with popularity came riches, so with the Golden Eagle Corn Syrup and the Hi-C Orange Aide money he bought a golden orange Cadillac convertible with cowhide upholstery and a pair of bullhorns for a hood ornament and drove around town, smiling, waving and blowing his horn. But still he couldn't stem the tide of the Orange-Aide and syrup money so he bought a home in Vestavia, a newly pretentious bedroom suburb of Birmingham. There, on the front lawn, Happy Hal erected a ten foot tall plywood cutout of himself, smiling and waving in full cowboy regalia. Unfortunately his neighbors considered this plywood image of Happy Hal to be in poor taste and sued for its removal. Two years later a Judge ruled that yes, Happy Hal's image was indeed in poor taste and ordered it dismantled. But for those two years people from all over Alabama would load up the kids and drive to Vestavia, admire Happy Hal's house and smile and wave at Happy Hal's sign. This was the closest that Birmingham ever got to Hollywood's "Tours of the homes of the Stars."
Time passed, I became thirteen, me and my buddies became self-considered sophisticates. To us and others Happy Hal had become a sad cliche and a not-so-funny joke. We laughed when The Birmingham News reported that Happy Hal, the happiest man in Birmingham, was undergoing a scandalous and hotly contested divorce. This notwithstanding, each day, as always, Happy Hal would end his broadcast with this , his signature saying...
* You can't sprinkle the perfume of happiness on others
without spilling a few drops on yourself. *
Me and my buddies thought this saying corny, and, well yes, it is.
That was then. This morning the memories of Happy Hal came to my mind, so acting on a silly whim I looked into the telephone book and to my surprise I found him.
A woman answered. Yes Happy Hal was still alive, he was ninety years old and had gone to the store and would be back in thirty minutes. No, I'm not his wife , I'm his companion. Yes, he's the same old Happy Hal. Please do call back, Happy will be sorry he missed you. He so much likes to be remembered.
And that is why I've changed my maxim. And it will be my maxim until I'm ninety. Or whatever comes first.
