Now you've gone and done it!!!!!!  I've wet my pants again.  This is just
too funny.  Ruth





At 5:06 PM -0400 4/16/03, Ken Follett wrote:
Content-Type: text/html; charset="UTF-8"
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A little bitty flash riff w/ "music" as a theme...

I'm the toothless guy and I like music. For the last fifteen years I have
been driving each morning and evening from Long Island to my office in
Brooklyn. In total I spend usually five hours per day in the car trying to
get to work or to home where I eat, toot and sleep. In the first years I
would listen to the radio, whatever station would play music. I would
listen to anything, jazz, hip-hop, rap, koto, classical, pop, tuba, rock n'
roll, bolero, electronic, blues, Celtic, new wave, zydeco you name it I've
heard it on the radio. Sometimes I've heard it twice. Then one snowy day
when I was not getting anywhere very fast I stopped listening to the radio.
I shut the damned noise box off. I was feeling dependent, not in control of
my destiny. After that I drove for hours and hours, days and weeks and
months with nothing but the sounds in my head. I have tenitus. I hear an
incessant buzzing. At first I thought it was the car. Then I realized that
I heard the buzzing when I was not in the car. When I sit on the john with
my pants around my ankles I hear buzzing. I complained to my doctor and had
my ears tested and the technician, speaking too softly, told me something
irrelevant that I forget. It was like the time I told my doctor that my
shoulder hurt and she sent me to the podiatrist. I went back out on the
road. The life of a long distance commuter is like living in a tin
monastery. Bored with listening to myself I began playing the Jew's harp. I
hold the harp in one hand, the metal arms between my lips, brace my knees
on the steering wheel and plunk plunk plunk myself along the expressway. I
learned 7-Eleven or Doubles. One weekend I drove fifty miles on the Thruway
without once touching the wheel with my hands. I can also peel a
grapefruit. I did not know enough songs for fifty miles and had to make up
my own tunes. Creativity is not my strength. I have calluses on my lips now
that they no longer bleed. Soothing lip balm makes the harp slip and slide
and it takes a while to build up a tough lip. After I got the hang of it I
went on to master the Who's rock opera Tommy. Teeth rattle and roll. Then I
went on to Vivaldi's seasons. Bach and Vivaldi adapt well to the Jew's harp
and motoring. Plunk plunk plunk. Driver's look at me from their vehicles
and I stop playing long enough to smile and cheerily wave at them.
Sometimes I jerk my foot on the accelerator, or the brake depending, in
time with the music. At one time I thought about the kazoo, or the nose
flute but I found myself hyperventilating with breathing instruments and
you can't smoke at the same time. Let me tell you, passing out while
driving is not good. Particularly not good when your cigarette falls into
the seat and you hit your head on the wheel and then the horn honks and
everybody on the road looks at you. It is kind of embarrassing. When the
traffic stops you need to be alert to put your foot down. Insurance costs
are skyrocketing. I heard about a commuter in Hartford, Connecticut that
took up the accordion. I understand they can work like an air bag. Speaking
of air bags, my cousin Mike took up the Scottish bagpipes, but he is a
stock analyst and has a driver, which is not quite fair. In the last few
weeks, after my most recent dental work, I've taken up the kalimba. I find
it is a bit of a hassle to hold the steering wheel steady and pluck the
metal reeds, but there is a glimmer of promise. If the kalimba does not
work then I may switch to bluegrass banjo.

XXX

--
Ruth Barton
[log in to unmask]
Westminster, VT

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