The muse

The Keed.

BobbaLouie (AKA the muse).

Pictured here is the infamous muse, the venerable BobbaLouie.
The muse has been around since Houghton, where it first found flower in the Houghton-Star college newspaper.
“Mrs. Lynip allowed she liked the tangled profusion of dull-brown telephone-wires gushing from her walls.”
Report the insanity exactly as observed. A jaundiced eye — don’t sweeten anything, especially if it’s insane.
The muse was misdirected at City/East Newspaper, but found flower again in the dreaded 282-News.
It apparently wasn’t effected at all by the stroke.
I remember what a joy it was to discover I could still sling it no matter how mucked up I was. (I used to say I had been hit by a Peterbilt.)
Rochester-Rehab had me review a video of a glitzy wheelchair-van, and I had a field-day.
“Such a thing would only work in southern-California,” I said. I had driven wheelchair buses, where the lifts corroded into non-functional oblivion, due to salt and slush.
We were supposed to test the suckers before pulling-out, but you didn’t dare do it inside the barns for fear of the lift locking-up fully-extended and blocking a lane.
(And of course, the bus couldn’t be driven if the lift was in operation — i.e. if the lift locked up fully-extended you couldn’t move the bus.)
The muse statue is a plastic figurine from the middle-’60s, a character made famous by Ed “Rat-Fink” Roth.
It’s the driver of a supposed hot-rod. The right hand is curled around a shift-knob, and the left hand is clamped on a steering-wheel.
I was wearing Woody-Allen glasses at Houghton, so I fashioned glasses out of paper-clips, and painted them flat-black. I only wear glasses to drive any more.
44 noticed it once, and I had to explain: “That’s BobbaLouie. I have to take care of BobbaLouie; which is why I run.”
After my stroke, my wife visited the hospital with BobbaLouie in tow.
“This is to remind you who you are,” she said.
The muse has been pretty productive lately.
I post to this here blog just about every day.
What happens is BobbaLouie observes something insane, and the muse takes over.
I’ve slung so many words together it’s almost automatic any more. Grammar and syntax I don’t worry about, unless the meaning is led astray.
Diddling with grammar and syntax just about destroyed what I wrote for City/East.
The mighty Mezz had a Writers’ Group I wasn’t part of, although I didn’t mind.
Marcy was the head of it, so one day a fellow-member visited Marcy’s cubicle to share exploits.
Marcy and I were side-by-side, so after eavesdropping a while, I finally said: “I don’t know what you guys are talking about; but when it comes to writing, I’ve found the thing to do is just pick up your shovel and start shoveling.”

“City/East Newspaper” was a small weekly Rochester newspaper I reported motorsports for in the middle-’70s.

“282-News” was a union-newsletter I did as a volunteer during my final year at Transit. It was very popular, and had immense powah. Local-282, Amalgamated Transit Union.

I had a stroke October 26, 1993.

I drove Transit-bus for 16&1/2 years: May 20, 1977 to October 26, 1993; the date of my stroke. Regional Transit Service of Rochester, New York. The “barns” were the garages where they stored the buses.

“44” (Agent-44) is my nephew Tom, the only son of my brother-in-Delaware. 44 recently graduated college.

“The mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, where I once worked (after the stroke).

“Marcy” was a co-employee at the mighty Mezz, and a co-conspirator. She left not too long ago, and went to Boston.