Rappin' Buddies /  by Matthew Fleming

Thank you to Diane Barbour who created these images of her brother, Billy, and my Pickles. The image was captured this summer in Milan, MI at Ronnie Hensler’s home.

Billy and Pickles Rapping

“If you don't have a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true?” /  by Matthew Fleming

When I was a kid, most Saturdays, or at least to me what seemed like most Saturdays, was ‘chores day’.  Mom and Dad would make a list, post it on the fridge, and everyone pitched in to get the work done.     The chores were horrible then, but as I look back we usually finished by lunch and the tasks we had to perform were probably much less than any middle-class household does for themselves these days.

As we grew older and the joy of getting up early to watch Saturday morning cartoons morphed into the pleasure of sleeping in late, Dad took to the practice of awakening his little darlings by playing the HiFi loudly - very loudly.  More often than not, again at least in my memory, songs from a musical were blasted up the stairs to rouse us.  I remember ‘Paint Your Wagon’, ‘Gonna Fly Now’ (from ‘Rocky’), ‘Bloody Mary’ (from South Pacific), and a few others which are just out of reach of my immediate memory.  The music usually kept playing in the background and helped pass the time.

I’m in my 50s now and the other weekend I decided to play South Pacific to help pass the time as I ticked off item on my chore list.  One of the tracks is ‘Happy Talk’ sung by the character Bloody Mary.  Part of the refrain’s lines are “You got to have a dream, if you don't have a dream / How you gonna have a dream come true?”.

You’ve got to have a dream.  The line got me to thinking.  And it got me writing.  What are my dreams?  Have any of my dreams come true?

I’ve not taken a photograph in ages.

I’ve not given a TED Talk or even attended one.

I’ve never thought of myself as a story teller.  My prose and poetry seem self-indulgent and a waste of time.  What can I say that hasn’t been said?  Who wants to hear my opinion anyway?  There was so much more to this story - my interpretation musicals vs. my family members’; how I felt about the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem but never dared to say; my time with family being so, so very positively (and sometimes negatively) influential yet ultimately important to who I was then and am now.  But my lunch hour flies away faster than a sparrow – shit...this metaphor’s going nowhere.