Tag Archives: hobby

Sep19

fury.

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back in the 60’s

so excited to begin my modeling hobby

 black fury arrived

took out all three of the pieces

two horse halves and a tail

 laid them out

along with my airplane glue

after reading the directions

carefully matching the halves

adding the tail

it’s black plastic body

smeared all over with glue

but it was together

 i had made it all by myself

gave it one last little squirt of glue

for good luck

which missed and went into my eye

my joy turned to dramatic squealing

zoomed off to the eye doctor

went home and looked at fury

with my one good eye

not sure what went wrong

learning not to add

one more little dab of something

when a project is finished

and began my foray into my new hobby

stamp collecting.

“when things go right it’s hard to figure out why,

but when things go wrong it’s really easy.”

-steven soderbergh

 

Jul17

axe.

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just another skill

acquired during the pandemic

my son-in-law built an axe throwing target

as something to do for fun

 showed me how to throw

i’m definitely not a natural

but kept trying

 finally got it to stick

my aim is not great

which might make me

even more dangerous

but that’s for another day.

—

“an axe cuts through a forest not because of its size, but its endurance.”

– matshona dhliwayo

Apr11

where hobbies, hijinks, and capers go bad = my childhood #2

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another day, another hobby.

in the late 60s

this was a book that i longed to own

i loved to get mail and loved to get free things

what could go wrong?

i used my saved-up coins to send in for the book

and could not wait to begin using it

i read it from cover to cover

marking pages, checking off favorites

 began writing notes, stuffing envelopes, and ordering things

using stamps that i found in a junk drawer

before i knew it i had a small collection of

weird government brochures, lists of tips, tables, charts, and recipes

none of which were really of any use to me

but i didn’t care what any of it was

as long as it came in the mail and it was free

my pile grew and grew

until it didn’t

when once again

i realized that i had no income

had used all of my money to buy the book

and had no way

to buy any more of the stamps

that i needed

to send in my requests

to get free things.

what i really needed were unlimited free books of stamps

and it was on to the next ill-fated hobby for me…

—

“sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.” 

-albert einstein