My 1st Sculpture and THE CRAWLING EYE

By Joel Haas

With a 9 PM bedtime strictly enforced, it was no problem for me and my two younger brothers to bounce out of bed at 5:30 AM or earlier on a Saturday morning.

In self defense, our parents eased the television restrictions so we could watch Channel 5’s Saturday morning “Sunrise Theater.”

Using bright red fingernail polish, Mom placed a mark on the TV volume knob—under no circumstances were we to turn the volume beyond that red mark. Thus, our parents could sleep late while we watched Grade B horror movies.

After pouring our bowls of cereal and making chocolate milk, we’d plop down in front of the 1957 vintage black and white “portable” TV. (Portable in those days meant a TV small enough it only required a gorilla sized man wearing a steel truss to move it from point “a” to point “b.”)

At that time (and even into the early 1980s) Raleigh’s WRAL-TV did not sign on the air by playing the national anthem. Instead, a photo montage of the Confederate War Memorial on Capitol Square would appear. Then, a slow, respectful version of the Confederate anthem “Dixie,” sung by the University of North Carolina’s Men’s Chorus, played. Pictures of The Old Well on the UNC campus and magnolia blossoms alternated with close up views of old cannon barrels and various other Confederate war memorials on the State Capitol grounds.

When the last photo of magnolias faded and the Men’s Chorus fell silent, the real fun began.

“Welcome to Sunrise Theater,” the announcer’s voice would intone, “Bringing you the best in exciting movies from Hollywood and around the world!”

Invariably, that meant ancient grade B movies from crypts almost as old as Dracula’s. The plots were witless, the special effects, cheesy and dirt cheap, and the acting only a cut above that found in any local high school.

Nonetheless, it scared us silly.

Nearly half the movies seemed to involve the rugged and redoubtable actor Andrew Dugand saving Los Angeles from giant ants/giant spiders/giant locusts/giant scorpions/ giant somethings bred by atomic tests gone terribly wrong in the Nevada desert.

No matter how horribly its genes had been altered by atomic blasts, any monster maintained an instinct to move toward Los Angeles and Andrew Dugand with all possible haste.

Just as surely, a young, nubile scientist’s daughter, in tight khaki riding breeches would fall in love with Andrew Dugand only to be stolen away by the monster d’ jour. These girls could be Olympic track stars, able to sprint 50 miles with no problem, but let one giant spider show up and they’d run around in circles in the Nevada desert until they had tripped over the only rock within miles, spraining their ankles. The hero was forced to change his plan because he had to save Miss Riding Breeches. This never made sense to little boys. What was saving Miss Riding Breeches compared to letting giant ants and giant locusts ravage Los Angeles? And besides, for Pete’s sake! it was only a girl!

Some movies scared us worse than others. Some movies scared me more than my brothers and some scared them more than me.

It was just such a movie that inspired my first sculpture as well as bringing out all my usual jerk big brother qualities.

THE CRAWLING EYE, a British movie made in 1957 under the title THE TROLLENBERG TERROR, scared my younger brother Michael. The plot: mind reading aliens shaped like giant eyeballs with tentacles attack Earth. The aliens’ stare and tentacles freeze people to death and/or behead them. The aliens meet their match and doom when they attack a “high tech” fort on Trollenberg Mountain in Switzerland An American hero calls in Britain’s Royal Air Force to drop fire bombs on the aliens.

Andrew Dugand sat this one out. Re titled THE CRAWLING EYE for American distribution, the hero was played by Forrest Tucker (who later played the sergeant in the US TV series F Troop.)

In any event, the movie did not scare me, but it transfixed Michael with fright. Evil older brother that I was, I soon dreamed up a way to scare him again.

For Christmas or a birthday, I don’t recall which, I’d been given a large amount of brightly colored modeling clay. (Even then, somebody must have thought I’d grow up to be a sculptor!) Anyway, I spent a large part of Saturday afternoon using every scrap of clay I owned to make a large, colorful eyeball about the size and shape of an American football.

Saturday night came, and after we’d had supper and helped Mom clear away the dishes, we played a bit more, then, put on our pajamas and Dad told us a bed time story. The story finished, we dispersed to our bedrooms and it was “lights out.”

Now, I put my plan into action.

I had a small bedroom to myself behind the den/TV room. The den opened out onto a long hall in front of the bathroom door. Across the hall, Michael and John slept in bunk beds in a larger bedroom. The long hall ran from the bathroom door down the length of the house, turning left into the living room.

Carefully lifting the “Crawling Eye,” I crept through the den, past the bathroom door. Crossing the hall, I could see light coming from the living room and hear the soft, indistinct voices of my parents.

I tip toed into my brothers’ room. There was enough ambient light from the night light in the hall. They were sound asleep, John in the bottom bunk bed, Michael in the top one, his face towards me.

I plopped the clay eyeball onto Michael’s pillow just an inch from his nose.

He didn’t wake up.

More extreme measures were called for.

I shook his shoulder roughly, while, in a frantic stage whisper, I said, “Wake up, Mike! The Crawling Eye! The Crawling Eye!”

Michael’s little brown eyes popped open in surprise. A split second later, he let out a scream.

God forgive me, but, speaking as an older brother, that was tremendously gratifying.

Payback threatened almost immediately.

“What’s going on back there??!!” Dad’s voice thundered from the living room.

“The Crawling Eye! The Crawling Eye!” Michael continued to shriek.

“Do y’all want me to come back there and take off my belt?!” I could hear Dad’s heavy steps as he moved out of his chair and towards the hall.

It was time to flee.

Grabbing the clay Crawling Eye, I dashed into the bathroom. I closed the door and crammed the clay eyeball as far as I could under the old fashioned claw footed bath tub. Outside the bathroom door, I heard Dad passing by on his way into my brothers’ room.

“What’s going on back here?!” I heard Dad bellow.

I flushed the toilet, waited a few seconds, and opened the door. Yawning broadly and rubbing my eyes sleepily, I looked up at Dad’s scowling face. “Is Michael having a nightmare?” I asked in smooth innocence.

“He’s got the Crawling Eye!” Michael yelled.

I looked at Dad and shrugged. He had no idea what we watched on Saturday morning, so “The Crawling Eye” meant nothing to him.

“Now y’all listen here,” Dad shook a finger, “ Everybody’s going back to bed and go to sleep or the next time I come back here I’ll already have my belt off. Everybody understand?”

“I didn’t do anything!” my youngest brother, John, protested his innocence.

“Good,” Dad grumped. “See that you don’t.”

I trudged slyly back to bed.

Sunday morning, I made it my business to get up before anybody else. I had evidence to recover and destroy.

In the bathroom, I pulled the tightly wedged clay model from its hiding place beneath the bath tub. Taking time to gather up bits that had come loose, I scampered back to my room.

There, I disassembled the clay eye. After sorting the different colors of clay into separate piles, I thoroughly squished them together. Before anybody else got up, I was making them into animals, airplanes, or ships. Soon, there was no trace of “The Crawling Eye.”

Michael must have had a bad dream.

The Chocolate Coins

by Joel Haas

At first I thought I had found a trove of chocolate coins!

One of our favorite chocolate candy treats in the 1950s was chocolate coins wrapped in stiff gold foil. With a design front and back, and lettering just like real coins, the candies were sold in little faux nets bags to resemble “pirates purses.” The challenge of eating chocolate coins was carefully removing the stiff gold foil, preserving the design of the coin. Slowly and carefully, we’d reassemble the empty wrappers later, to make play money. We never got chocolate coins except on special occasions like Christmas, or Easter.

BUT….

Here it was July, and I had found about a dozen of them right here in the drawer of Dad’s bedside table!

Conflicting emotions flooded into my young mind. What an unexpected treat! How could Dad have kept all these chocolate coins to himself all this time? He was always generous with me and my brothers when it came to chocolate candy and treats. I was hurt he had been holding out on us!

I examined the coins in greater detail. The gold foil glittered and the only thing keeping me from tearing open several of them and gobbling them down was trying to balance in my mind how many I could eat and Dad not notice them missing? I had never seen this brand of chocolate coins and they were not in the usual pirate’s bag purse.

Too, all the coins were the same size. Other chocolate coins ranged in sizes from about the size of a nickel to a quarter to an old fashioned silver dollar. All of these seemed to be about the size of a 50 cent piece.

Gingerly, I pried one apart. The sides did not come apart as easily as the chocolate coins I was used to.

When I finally got the wrapper off, I was surprised and disappointed to find what looked like a greasy, twisted rubber band or a flat mushroom. Carefully pulling it out, I gave it an exploratory nibble. YEECH! It was definitely rubber bands! Rubber bands, but definitely, very weird rubber bands. Poking at the middle of it, I found I could unroll it like a long sock. It seemed pretty greasy, but I was curious, “how far could this thing be unrolled?”

Quite a long ways, as I discovered, but just as I had unrolled it as far as it was going to go, my mother came into the room.

I might be in trouble.

On the one hand, I might be able to get out of it by showing Mom that Dad obviously had been holding out on us all with the candy coins. On the other hand, these were not the usual candy coins. A neutral course was best, I decided.

“What is this?” I turned to Mom.

Whatever normal chastisement I was due for went right out of Mom’s head when confronted with her small son holding forth a fully unrolled condom.

“That’s your father’s,” she said flatly.

“I know,” I said gravely. “I found it in his drawer.”

There was a short silence. “What is it?” I persisted.

“It’s a machine part covering,” Mom said --- the first thing that popped into her head. Then, without further ado, she retreated, leaving me unchastised, relieved, and deeply puzzled.

My father was legendarily unmechanical. A Philips head screw driver was the most complex tool in the house. What possible machine could he be using this on?

Well. There was one machine.

My father, Ben Haas, was a professional writer. The only machine I had ever seen him use was the model 1923 Underwood manual typewriter on the desk in the bedroom. It was the tool of his trade and I had seen him take it apart to clean and repair it.

I walked around to the desk, holding the “machine part covering” in front of me. I tried stretching it, but there was obviously no possible way this was going to cover the entire typewriter. At best, I could stretch it over a few keys or let it flop limply over the carriage return leaver. Would Dad come back and find I had taken one of his “machine parts coverings?” Would he be mad and punish me for going through his bedside table drawer?

The only way out I could see was to show I was a good and dutiful son. I needed to show I had seen to covering his machine parts in his absence when he had obviously forgotten to do so himself.

But how did this rubber tube fit on a typewriter???!!!

I was beginning to panic.

Suddenly, I had an insight. It was the roller platen! I had seen Dad unscrew the ornate brass knobs on each end of the roller platen, remove it, clean it and replace it. That had to be it! I easily unscrewed the knobs and removed the platen.

With great difficulty, I managed to encase the whole length in the stretchy “machine parts covering,” and get the platen replaced. The knobs wouldn’t go back on, so I carefully laid the encased roller on top of the typewriter, setting the knobs to one side.

I closed Dad’s bedside drawer, taking the “machine part wrapper” with me--- it would make great play money along with the rest of the gold coin wrappers my brothers and I had saved.

Then, I left my parents’ bedroom, closing the door quietly, not mentioning my good deed to either Mom or Dad, figuring I would either be in for a scolding or praise soon enough.

I have no idea whether my father came home shortly thereafter and, finding a condom on his typewriter, took it as a not so subtle hint from my mother that he was working too much and should pay more attention to the home front. Maybe Mom went in the bedroom, and quietly removed the “machine part covering,” replacing the roller platen so Dad would never suspect his precious typewriter had been “violated.” Or, maybe, they found it and both had a hysterical laugh over it.

Neither of them ever said a single word about it to me.

The Fairy Princess

The Fairy Princess
--A mostly True Story

by Joel Haas


I’m a sculptor and this is a story about one of my most unusual commissions. I write this a day or two before Mother’s Day, and, as you shall see, that is very appropriate. Photos of the final work are at the end of this piece.

Several years ago, I received a phone call from a lady I had never met, a professional garden designer, who had seen my work and now wanted to commission a work for her own garden. As a professional artist, my bank account has never been so swollen that I could summarily turn down work, so while I idly played with the phone cord and sipped a cup of coffee, she explained what she wanted.
“I want you to do a memorial piece,” she began, “about my late daughter. She was six.” My heart sank—I don’t do portrait work, and certainly not portrait work when I can’t see the actual subject.
“She was killed in an automobile wreck along with her puppy and my younger sister who was taking her to the park.”
I told myself this was a job I did not want.
As if reading my thoughts, she told me, “I don’t want a portrait of her. And this happened five years ago.” She went on, “ I don’t care what sort of style you do this work in or what medium, but you do have to use the colors pink and purple.”
“Why pink and purple?” I asked.
“She had a fairy princess outfit that was pink and purple which she wore while playing in the garden.”
“So,” I asked, “what you really want is a sculpture that evokes the spirit of your child in the garden?”
“Right,” she answered.
“That,” I told her, “I can do,”—though I didn’t have the faintest idea at the time how.

Over the next few weeks I tried some ideas out—made abstract sketches, doodles of ultra realistic castings of flowers or children, but none of it seemed right. I was not evoking anybody’s spirit with these ideas--and deadlines and bills loomed. Finally, I realized, my client knew her child’s story, but I did not and I never would. So. I had to write her daughter’s story anew for myself and work out a sculpture based on that.

Over the next few days, I wrote a children’s story about a little girl who meets a real fairy princess and wants to become one, too. Then, I illustrated the story as if I were six years old!
I had the mother read the story when I was finished. After a good cry, she looked over the childish drawings I had so painstakingly made and selected which one she wanted me to translate into a steel sculpture for her garden.
What follows is the story I wrote and a picture of the final 8 ft tall steel Fairy Princess I built.

HOW LEAH BECAME A FAIRY PRINCESS
It all began with a very loud crash.
Then.
Everything was quiet and Leah was in her garden again.
For the longest time nobody came but the day was pleasant and nearly all the flowers were in bloom.
Soon, Helen and Margo from down the block came through the gate. A little after that, Leah heard her mother’s voice and Lindsey’s mother’s voice outside the tall, wooden gate. They seemed to be speaking in hushed tones, but, in a moment, Lindsey came in the garden, and they didn’t care what sort of tones their moms were speaking in.
Margo and Lindsey had capes and crowns and Helen had pink boots with glitter and a very fancy sparkly wand her daddy had made her. Soon kingdoms and castles had been conjured, boundaries drawn and tea parties and treaties arranged. There were no frogs to be found in the garden, so a kitten was pressed into service. Margo proclaimed the kitten an enchanted prince she would save with a magic wand and food.
Wrapped in enough towel “robes” to immobilize it, the kitten was plied with endless cups of imaginary tea and cake as they awaited just the right moment to suddenly proclaim it a handsome human prince.

A buzzing, tickling sound was heard in the distance. The garden grew even brighter. The air shimmered. Suddenly, in a shower of silver sparks, The Fairy Princess appeared, mounted on her faithful steed, Charley Horse.
The girls had never seen such a wonderful outfit!
Unnoticed, the kitten struggled free of the “robes” and teacups and hurried to safety under the kitchen steps.
“Do you all want to play fairy princess?” The Fairy Princess asked, casually brushing her magic wand through Charley Horse’s mane.
Hardly able to speak, all the girls nodded yes.
“Well, then,” The Fairy Princess proclaimed serenely, “We shall need wonderful dresses and castles and wands for everybody!”
As she slipped gracefully from Charley Horse’s back, The Fairy Princess shouted, “Tiaras for everybody, too!” With a glowing wave of her magic wand, they were all transformed –every one of them.
“Leah!” Margo and the other little girls looked up. “We didn’t know you were here and playing, too!”
“Of course, she’s playing too,” The Fairy Princess said airily as she waved her magic wand again.
And Presto! Head to toe, Leah was wearing a pink and purple outfit. Her pink gauzy wings fit perfectly with her sparkly purple dress, yellow crown and wand. She felt a bit wobbly and saw she was perched on some of her mother’s old high heels!
“Perfect!” The Fairy Princess squealed. “Everybody wave their magic wands!”
And so the morning passed—the girls waving their magic wands to create kingdoms and wipe away tears.
At lunch time, a grand gathering of the kingdoms was held and Leah’s mother—a servant summoned on brief sufferance from another world—served cookies and juice.
“May we please ride Charley Horse after lunch?” the girls begged The Fairy Princess.
“Of course,” The Fairy Princess answered between delicate bites of cookie. “He loves to race with the butterflies—he’s not really fast enough to beat the hummingbirds, though.”

And so they played until the shadows lengthened as the afternoon sun turned the garden lawn hazy gold.
Leah was having so much fun riding Charley Horse and turning flowers into castles and frogs, she hardly noticed Margo and Helen and Lindsey had left.
“Where did they all go?” Leah asked The Fairy Princess. “Did they all have to go home?”
“No,” said The Fairy Princess as she conjured up sugar cubes and apples to give Charley Horse, “They said they were too old to play fairy princess any more and left.”
“Will they be back?” Leah asked.
“No,” was the reply. “They’ll always be too old to play fairy princess now.”
Surprised and a little put out, Leah declared, “Well, I’m not too old to play fairy princess. I never want to be that old!”
So they played—or held court—until the tide of shadows washed over the garden and lightning bugs began to twinkle above the beds of liriope and spearmint.
“Charley Horse loves to race lightning bugs,” The Fairy Princess observed while daintily holding a pretend tea cup.
“I would love to be a real fairy princess like you!” Leah sighed. Even the coat hanger wire in her gauzy pink wings seemed to slump a bit in resignation.
“Why nothing could be easier!” The Fairy Princess said. “You have only to ask your mother if you can come with me to see Titania, The Fairy Queen. I’m sure she could make you a real fairy princess for ever!”
“Now?” Leah was startled.
“Just go ask,” The Fairy Princess pointed to the back door. Already, the porch light had come on to show the steps in soft light.

The screen door shut quietly behind Leah as she entered the house. It seemed so dark and so late. Hadn’t the sun just gone down? Yet both hands on the kitchen clock were already on the 12!
Had she missed supper?! She hadn’t even felt hungry all day!
The house seemed so dark, yet she could see with perfect clarity. It didn’t matter—she could have walked the house with her eyes closed. She hurried down the hall and to the left—into her mother’s bedroom.
Mommy had new pajamas and her hair looked different.
Odd.
But still, this was the safest and coziest place in the world!
Without even thinking about it, Leah climbed into bed with her mother as she had so often in the past. She heard her mother’s happy murmur of sleepy greeting and felt her mother’s arms around her.
Adjusting her toy wings and wand, she told her mother all about the day, about Charley Horse and Margo, and Helen, and Lindsey, and about The Real Fairy Princess who could really fly and really turn columbines into teacups and pecan sticks into wands. And how the other girls were too old to play fairy princess and had left but how the Real Fairy Princess had promised Leah could be a Real Fairy Princess, too, if her mom would only let her go with the Real Fairy Princess to see Titania, The Fairy Queen, and…”
Leah stopped for breath.
Her mother was smiling and nodding.
“Oh, please, Mom! May I go? May I?” She used the same tone as if she were pleading to go to Margo’s for a sleep over.
For the longest time, her mother said not a word.
Finally, “Yes,” she nodded, and Leah was out of bed, nearly flying down the hall, shouting, “Thanks, Mom!” and never saw the single magic tear coursing down her mother’s face.
Charley Horse was waiting nearby as the back door slammed shut and Leah skipped into the moonlight shouting, “My mom says it’s okay! I can be a Real Fairy Princess forever!”


Day was rapidly diluting the night sky.
The mother stood silently crying by the back door. She had had the most delicious and painful dream of Leah last night. The joy of holding her child in her heart and then the white hot pain of letting her go.
She pushed the back door open and felt the dew and grass between her toes.
She heard voices--softer than daybreak’s whisper—in the jasmine along the back wall.
Sparkling dimly in the tree branches overhead was a regal woman in a magnificent gown. Titania, The Fairy Queen! Around her were little girls in a multitude of fairy princess robes from terry cloth to gauze to real satin.
She saw Leah standing before The Fairy Queen, a look of puzzlement and awe on her child’s face.
“Where are my real crown and real magic wand?” Leah asked.
“In your mother’s garden,” The Fairy Queen answered. “You’ll have to seek them there.” Then, waving her scepter, The Fairy Queen wove a circle of sparkling fairy dust around Leah’s head. “This is what I decree: that whenever and wherever you are carried in your mother’s heart throughout her garden, you will be Chief Real Fairy Princess there and decide whatever games are to be played!”
With that, The Fairy Queen started to rapidly fade away. Already, it was hard to tell if she were still there in the tree top—or if it were just a trick of the light on leaves and branches.
“Wait!” Leah called, “Can I have my friends over? And all the other princesses, too?”
“By all means,” she heard The Fairy Queen say. “And Charley Horse, too.”
And, then—they all vanished.
And, then—it really was just morning light playing tricks on leaves and branches.
CLICK ON THE FAIRY PRINCESS PHOTO TO VIEW LARGER PHOTO
Steel sculpture about 8 feet tall--note, even the flowers holding up the princess are made in steel. There is a butterfly in her hand for resurrection.
Below are two of the quick sketches of illustrations done for the mother to view.

The Lollipop Garden

THE LOLLIPOP GARDEN

By Joel Haas

Well, I couldn’t go on eating only Spam and fried sliced weenies forever.

I would not eat lettuce, string beans, brussel sprouts, peas, salads, carrots, radishes, or anything that came out of the ground.

“You need to eat your vegetables,” my parents would say. Children hear this and wonder “why?” “So you’ll grow up tall and strong,” was always the answer.

Not a good enough answer for a three year old.

My parents were at wits’ end, convinced I would never grow taller than 3 ft and haunt them forever as a public example of their parental failure to make me eat my vegetables.

“There’s Joel Haas,” people would say as a wizen Munchkin passed them--“He’s 55 years old and still no bigger than the day he turned three!--all because his parents were too lazy to make him eat his vegetables!” Determined to avoid this shame in their dotage, long nightly battles were fought with me at the supper table.

As with so many parents trying to find a high minded way along the path to raising their first child, they eventually hit upon the solution favored by generations preceding them—bribery and lies.

As always with my parents, the genius was in the presentation.

“We’ll plant a lollipop garden, if you eat your vegetables.” My father promised one night.

“A lollipop garden?” I was intrigued.

“Yes,” my father went on to explain. “I discovered we have magic dirt in a secret part of the backyard. If I say the right magic words over it, it will grow lollipops for you every night you eat your vegetables.”

“Let’s see it,” I demanded.

“No,” Dad was determined to squeeze this for all he could. “You eat your vegetables tonight and we’ll go get some dirt for a lollipop garden tomorrow night when I come home from work.”

This was sufficient bribe for that night. Looking forward to a lollipop garden, I ate my vegetables without further objection.

The next day, Dad was home a little later than usual. I could hardly wait to get started on the lollipop garden. I remember it was nearly dark. Together, we went into the farthest corner of the backyard.

Envisioning agribusiness farming vast acres of lollipops, I offered the use of my toy bulldozer and trowel to gather up huge piles of dirt for a lollipop garden. Dad said he didn’t think there was that much magic dirt around and that we would only need the chipped plate Momma had given us and the neighbor’s shovel.

While I was ready and willing to haul right in to digging anywhere, Dad made a great show of looking for just the right place to find magic dirt (probably to avoid dog poop and tree roots.)

A shovelful of dirt was soon heaped on the plate. Dad waved a hand over it several times muttering some “magic words.” and we were ready to go inside for supper.

With great ceremony, the plate of magic dirt was placed on one end of the kitchen counter. After supper, my parents explained, if I ate all my vegetables, one of them would come in and check the lollipop garden to see if any lollipops had grown.

It all worked as predicted. I ate my vegetables and one of my parents would go into the kitchen to check the lollipop garden. The dirt plate would be brought out to me, a half dozen or so lollipops stuck into the tightly packed dirt. I could choose one—two maybe if I had been very good or had volunteered to eat a second helping of peas—and the rest were harvested and put away to bribe me with the following day. Momma placed them in a small bowl out of my reach on top of the old refrigerator they’d nicknamed “Wheezy” because of the sound the compressor motor mounted on top made.

Amazingly, the lollipop garden grew exactly the flavors and brands I liked best and could see in the stores. An additional benefit to my parents was I quit whining for those lollipops when in the grocery store. We could grow them at home for free!

I wanted to go out with more plates and the neighbor’s shovel to find more magic dirt. We could have a huge farm of lollipops in the kitchen and even sell some to the grocery store. (This is only the first of many impractical business models I was to pursue in later life.)

There was no more magic dirt, it was explained to me. We were very lucky to have found this much and I should be careful not to mess with it or mistreat it, or even this small pile might lose its ability to sprout candy.

All went well. I was eating my vegetables. I would grow up to be “tall and strong” (at least enough so, people wouldn’t talk that my parents had not made me eat right.) I did not whine for lollipops at the grocery store. All was right with the world.

All was right, that is, until “Aunt Wat” came to visit.

MaryFran Watson was one of my mother’s high school and college friends. Only child of a well to do and prominent Raleigh family, she had gone to New York City to theater school and had pursued a career on the stage. In later years, when she had returned to Raleigh, I recall “Aunt Wat” telling me to “save your voice for the stage, dear,” rather than the “will you kids be quiet?!” we were more likely to hear from other adults. That was all in the future. I was only three and had never met her before.

She arrived for a visit to have lunch with my mother. Immaculately turned out in a dark blue suit with matching hat and heels, her outfit was the perfect compliment to her naturally red hair and fair skin.

I was fed beforehand and sent to play quietly in the living room where they could still watch me and have a light, elegant lunch, while catching up on gossip and news.

I played quietly with my toy cars and bulldozer. From the living room, --this is important-- I could see into both the dining room and the kitchen.

Lunch was finished and my mother excused herself for a moment—probably to go to check the mailbox and go to the bathroom. “Aunt Wat,” ever the good guest, called after, “I’ll just take the dishes on into the kitchen.”

I watched her place the dishes on the counter, the silverware in the sink and wipe off the counter top. She paused a moment, a puzzled look on her face. Then, to my three year old horror, and with as traumatic effect today as when it happen over a half century ago, I watch her pick up the lollipop garden plate, press the trashcan pedal with one elegant blue high heel shoe.

When the trash can lid popped up, she summarily dumped the entire plate of dirt into the trash can.

I went into a complete meltdown.

No professional actor has ever chewed a rug or scenery with the intense hysteria I showed that day.

Aunt Wat, of course had not the faintest idea what had happened. She rushed into the living room expecting to find me mortally injured. There was no mark on me and, it was obvious, choking was not my problem. My incoherent screaming about lollipops probably deepened her concern.

Momma returned but I was inconsolable. The two of them could not jolly me back to good humor. The lollipop garden was gone, abused and blasphemed so much I was sure it would never return.

I howled bloody murder on through the afternoon and I am sure my mother and MaryFran’s visit was cut short by my grief.

Mom and Dad must have agreed this was a great time to cut the candy budget and my dental bills, because I do not recall the lollipop garden being restored. Its magic dirt went out with the trash and, somewhere in the landfill, fallow and untended, still awaits a new young farmer.

I didn’t know it then, but there was yet one more spectacular harvest to be had from the lollipop garden. For my fortieth birthday party, the centerpiece present was a huge platter presented by “Aunt Wat,” forty, expensive, gourmet lollipops stuck in a heap of packed dirt.

I am here to tell you, I ate every one of them over the following month and half—and I did so without always eating my vegetables!

Airplane Milk

by Joel Haas
It was a Saturday.

My mother was out and my father was seeing to me—age four—and my baby brother.

I was going through a phase in which I would only eat Spam and fried sliced hot dogs. Wisely, my parents did not fight with me about my diet, and, so far as I can tell, it did not stunt my growth. They figured I would outgrow it soon enough and that I would be okay as long as I drank plenty of milk. Back then, before anybody worried about gluten allergies, fiber, too much fat, too much sugar or whatever, milk was the child’s elixir of good health. “Build strong bones! Drink more milk!” Advertising companies and the American Dairy Farmers’ Assoc. had seen to that.

We always drank a lot of milk. My Grandmother Haas declared from her experience (she had 3 sons) there was no ill in a small child’s life that could not be salved with copious quantities of chocolate milk.

So, it was with some consternation, my father noticed I had eaten all the fried hot dogs and Spam on my plate but left my glass of milk untouched.

“Drink your milk, son,” he urged. “Finish your milk and you can go to work.”
In imitation of my father, I “went to work.” Every day in a patch of dirt outside the back window. There, I used a toy bulldozer, a toy hammer and a little hard hat to dig shallow holes at random and then fill them back up.

(Yes, I know that describes your job today, but mine was pretend work and yours is, well…real work?)

Anyway, I could not be bribed with the prospect of work.
I sat truculent, and the glass of milk sat untouched.

“So,” my father asked, “do you want chocolate milk?”

“No!” I declared. This was not going to be as easy a victory as he thought.

“Well,” Dad started, “do you want goat milk?”

“No!”

“Do you want tiger’s milk?”

“No!”

“Do you want elephant’s milk?”

“No!”

“Do you want plain milk?” Dad asked, pointing at the glass.

“No!”

Frustrated, Dad grated out a play on words he was sure a four year old would not understand. “So, do you want air plane milk?”

Silence.

I was curious. I remembered a trip to the airport and seeing the airplanes.
“Yes,” I said. “I want airplane milk.”

Experienced parent that he was becoming, Dad leaped for the chance.
“You stay right here,” he instructed. “I think we have airplane milk in the kitchen.”

In a few moments, Dad came back from the kitchen. In his hand, he held a glass of blue milk.
“I was just by the airport at work,” he said, “and they were milking the airplanes, so I bought some.”

He set the glass of blue milk in front of me.

“Try that” he said.

It was sweet, as if it had had several spoonfuls of sugar mixed in it, with a strong taste of vanilla and flecks of nutmeg. It was just as blue as when Mom added food color to cake icing.

It was delicious!

Who in their right minds would mess with cows after this??!!

I drank it all and demanded more.

Dad knew he had a winner and was determined to expand his advantage. While I sat at the table, Dad returned to the kitchen to mix up several more sample glasses of airplane milk. Different kinds of airplanes gave different kinds of milk, Dad explained. Jets gave blue milk, small planes gave yellow milk, while red milk came from the DC-3s Piedmont Air still flew then, and so on.

After that, whenever my father called home from work during the day, I would demand to speak with him. “Daaadyyy,” my reedy little voice would stretch out the word, “Don’t forget to go by the airport and get some air plane milk!”

As an adult, I have been in and out of a lot of airports and flown on a variety of airplanes.

But you can’t fool me. Every time I’m sitting in my seat waiting to take off and I see the big tanker trucks drive up under an airplane wing and hook up those long hoses….

I know what’s really going on!!!

All I have to say is--- if people quit flying, the cows had better watch out!

Recipe—to make Air Plane Milk

In an 8 ounce glass of cold milk, mix several spoonfuls of sugar. Add a teaspoon of vanilla or almond flavoring. Add a pinch of cinnamon or nutmeg. Finally, add food coloring as appropriate.

 I sometimes make hot air plane milk on winter nights. Heat milk and then add sugar, vanilla and nutmeg to taste.

Serve in a mug while making airplane noises.

I KILL THE SPIDER

By Joel Haas

One Friday evening just before Halloween, a young lady called saying she was opening a new gallery in the western part of the state and would I consider her representing me there?

I spent a few moments on the phone with her, parading my middle aged pride and pomposity, and in general letting her know just how lucky she was to be getting an artist of my caliber (an over 40 inch waist) to deign consent to sign on.

In talking, she mentioned she was staying in town only a few blocks from where I live and work. Thus, it was arranged she’d call me the following week and come by my studio. Before we hung up, I suggested in passing that if she were out that evening (she admitted to being in her mid 20s and single, so I presumed she would be going out on a Friday evening) that she drive by our house to see all the sculpture in the front yard lit up for Halloween. She said she might do just that.

Giving it no more thought, I hung up, did a bit more paperwork, decided to go take a shower and turn in early. (As I am not in my mid 20s and single, I can sleep early on Friday as well as any other night.)

I stripped off my clothes, marched into the upstairs bathroom and opened the shower stall door.

On the stall floor, a large, black wolf spider floundered in surprise and panic. How it got there, I do not know, but it seemed certain it was not getting out since its spindly, hairy legs could get no purchase on the slick shower stall floor.

Now, I have been married long enough to know “it is the man’s job to kill the bugs,” but I am actually fairly tolerant of spiders. After all, you do not find spiders in a house with no bugs. Since my wife, Joy, was not around to pass an instant “no appeals” death sentence on the creature, I decided to simply toss the spider back to wherever it could find bugs.

Having no cardboard, plastic cups or such readily to hand, I looked around for something with which to scoop up the spider.

The blue, plastic toilet brush seemed perfect.

From the spider’s point of view, things had gone from bad to worse. First, it was marooned on a slick, bugless, ceramic desert. Certain death and terror then appeared in the form of a naked, middle aged fat man—a vision to make more than just spiders flail in fear.
Now the naked fat man was chasing him around the shower floor with a blue plastic toilet brush!

More panicked than ever, the spider turned away from the commode brush. No doubt, my falsetto whispers of “it’s okay, just climb on the brush and you’ll soon be on your way to a warm, bug filled crack in the wall..” sounded like, “I WANT TO DIP YOUR WEB IN ACETONE AND SMEAR YOUR BODY ACROSS THE WALL!!!!”

Finally, the spider consented to climb on to the toilet brush.

It was at this point I realized I had no idea where to put him. Where was the spider’s hole?

I couldn’t just dump him back on the bathroom floor. In the meantime, the spider was crawling down the toilet brush handle towards my hand. I had to keep changing the position of the toilet brush to send the spider creeping back away from my hand.

My last option was to ease toward the upstairs window, poke the toilet brush outside and shake the spider off into nature. Well, of course, I’d be “exposed,” but only for a moment while I shook the spider off the brush. Anyway, our quiet street looked dark and deserted.

Thrusting the blue toilet brush out the window, I gently tapped it on the side of the house.

The spider remained unmoved. It did not get the hint.

I tapped harder, really whacking the brush hard against the brick wall.

“Jump off!” I hissed.

The spider edged toward my hand. Frantic, I whacked the brush harder.
“Jump off!!!” I bellowed.

Our neighbor’s car drove up. Duane, our neighbor, is a clerk at the university library but his true passion is an adult marching band. Several times a month, Duane’s front yard is filled with strapping young men flinging wooden rifles in the air in unison and attractive 30 something women twirling batons and flag waving.

“Don’t look up, Duane,” I silently sweated out a prayer while ever more fervently beating the brush against the wall.

It’s dark. I cannot see Duane’s car, only the headlights. They blink out and I hear his car door slam. In a moment, I hear his front porch open and close. If he’s seen me, he’s run inside for a camera or to call the police.

I can’t worry about that now, because things have gotten worse.

Another car has pulled up along the street and slows as it approaches our house.
I was so focused on Duane, I didn’t even notice it coming.
“Who..?”
“Oh God!” it flashes through my mind, “the young woman starting a gallery!”

“JUMP OFF, DAMMIT!” I almost howl at the spider and flail the toilet brush on the outside wall so hard the spider ought to die of whiplash if the creature had any neck.

The car lights suddenly speed up and drive off.

I look at the end of the brush.

Nothing there but bristles now. “Good,” I sigh, and get the window closed and blinds lowered in record time.

I would be on tenterhooks until Monday. Would the gallery owner call? Would she say anything? I most dreaded a cheerful tone asking me if I did performance art, too?
Was it even her? Was it just a passing car, slowing to look at the cheerful Man In The Moon sculpture lit up in the front yard and not the “moon” lit in the second story window?

I would know Monday.

I took my shower.

Duane must not have heard me and looked up. The other car must have been a random passer by. The gallery owner arranged to meet me the next week and took on several pieces.

As for the spider

I don’t know and don’t care if the fall killed it or if, as my wife laughed, “it likely died of embarrassment.”

36 Years as a Sculptor! How I Started

Thirty-six years ago  (March, 1981), a deranged man tried to kill President Ronald Reagan. In doing so, he inspired me to become a sculptor and I have never since ceased to marvel at the peculiar way the world works.

In March 1981, I owned 2 failing businesses, a small hobby shop and a mail order rare book business. Driving to the post office, I heard on the radio President Reagan had been shot--there was no word on his condition. My first reaction was, "This will be awful for business." My second reaction was "Business has been awful for you, to think that way when people get shot--even politicans." It followed naturally in the next instant I said to myself, "Why don't you become a sculptor? That's what you always wanted to be."

Returning from the post office, I went in the house to tell my first wife, Jeanie, I had decided to sell the businesses and become a free lance sculptor. Working the evening/early morning shift as a news photographer for WRAL, a local TV station, she was home during the day. It was the first really warm day of Spring and she was sunbathing on the concrete patio in back.

"I have to talk to you, " I said.

"Okay," she answered without opening her eyes. "I have to talk to you, too."

Clueless male that I am/was, I figured she wanted new curtains in the kitchen or had some complaint about clean up for my 30th birthday party.

"You first," I generously offered, --after all, I thought I had momentous news.

"Well," she opened her blue eyes and looked straight at me, "I have never really loved you and I want out of this marriage."

So. There you have it.

I turned 30. Reagan got shot. I decided to become a sculptor. My first wife announced she was leaving.

It was not yet 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Alexander Haig had not yet even come on the TV to say "he was in charge."

It is said the three greatest stresses in life result from a change in either personal relations, or a career change, or a financial status change. I encountered all three at once. It was like trying to learn to ride a unicycle while learning to ride it on a tight rope, while learning to juggle oranges all at the same time.

"WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU KNEW YOU COULD NOT FAIL?" My sister in law, Ann, gave me that sign for my office a few years ago. I consciously read it daily as both inspiration and reproach.

In 1981, Raleigh had one commercial art gallery. I have no college degree, nor had I ever had an art lesson. I had no money. I did not even know any other sculptors. I did not know how to carve or weld. I could not draw well. I owned no tools of any sort beyond a hammer, pliers, and screw driver.

It seemed insanely improbable.

So what have I learned from being insanely improbable over the past 25 years?

I have learned that if you talk about doing a thing, well meaning people will tell you all the sound reasons why you're wrong and probably should not do it.

I have learned if you just go ahead and do it anyway, people will come from all sorts of surprising places to help in the ways they can and in ways you never dreamed you needed.

You will succeed in ways you never dreamed of and that makes failure in some things you thought you were good at not nearly so painful or even important.

Master a craft or medium completely as possible and you will be able to say anything you want with that medium. When I was starting out, I feared I would choose the "wrong" medium for me--Should I specialize in stone? wood? bronze? etc. I learned it did not matter. The paradox is that a narrow specialty and command can liberate one's voice entirely because you no longer wonder how to do something technically, but rather what to say.

I have learned to insist upon myself. As everybody who has dealt with me in the past 36 years has learned-I am not "going to suddenly come to my senses and get a real job." Being an artist is a real job. As corporate and government scandals today show, often being an executive or government official is not a real job, no matter how much it pays.

I have learned it is an awkward fact that God does not care whether I have paid my library fines and water bill when I die. He only cares if have I done what I was supposed to. It is amazing the number of people who will abdicate their life and their gifts because of the fear they'll be thought a deadbeat or a weirdo.

I have learned academics love intellectual art, art critics love cynical irony and sarcasm, but the other 99.9% percent of humanity responds to art that is positive, funny, or optimistic. If you are a positive, funny, and optimistic person, do not try to do sarcastic or intellectual or negative art.
Master basic drawing and basic bookkeeping.

Draw or write for 30 minutes a day--you have no idea how many good ideas you will forget otherwise.

Quit smoking. You'll save an extra hour a day of work in the studio.

My Monster Grows Up

I got home late from the movie.
Sadaam Hussien, covered with smallpox, was sitting on an atomic bomb in my living room.
Scared the daylights out of me! I thought he was a burglar—you read so much about crack dealers, high on meth, committing home invasions. Then I relaxed. Hey, I don’t live in a bad neighbohood.
“Please,” Sadaam croaked, “Would you let me sleep under your bed? I’ll lose the smallpox and the A-Bomb.”
“I thought you were in prison in Iraq!”
“No,” Sadaam explained, “That’s Sadaam Hussein, I’m just your irrational fears.”
“My irrational fears?!” I was skeptical.
“Don’t you remember me?” Sadaam morphed into a smooth blob of green jelly moving around the carpet.
“The Abominable H Man?” I nearly screamed.
“The Monster Under the Bed!” the green jelly coalesced into a spider with three alligator heads. “We grew up together!”
“I thought I outgrew you!” I said as the monster morphed into George Bush and then into Osama Bin Laden.
“Never!” the monster sounded hurt and flickered between Barry Manilow and Dick Cheney. “People think they’re born with a guardian angel. They’re all born with an Irrational Fear. Of course, we start as immature as children.”
“You mean…,”
“Yep,” the monster nodded, “I was just a five year old monster under your bed trying to figure out how many heads an alligator has. Never could get the legs to match, though.”
“Why are you here?” I demanded. “What’s all this about wanting to sleep under my bed?”
“Well,” the monster slumped into an easy chair, “It’s hard enough being a grown up and having to embody grown up fears, but the advent of CNN and Fox News and all this internet stuff….. For crying out loud, it’s paranoiac fears, alarms and panics 24/7 now. It’s exhausting just trying to keep up.”
“Remember? It was all so simple. All I had to be was a giant spider or a dinosaur or a bucket of snakes with alligator heads and stay under your bed. If I were out of ideas, I could always be something you’d seen on Saturday morning horror flicks—The Crawling Eye or the Abominable H Man…”
He sighed, flickering pink, then green, and then pink again—“”it’s not easy being green…” he muttered.
Then, he went on, “It’s just too damn complicated now. How can I be bird flu, anthrax, the budget deficit, nuclear war, health insurance, where are your kids, is your spouse cheating on you, and what was that mysterious lump you felt in the shower????”
He started to blubber. “I tell you, it all just scares the dickens out of me and I just can’t keep up with being all the monsters I’m supposed to be now that you’re grown up…”
I hate to see a grown monster cry. “There, there,“ I tried to sound hopeful, helpful.
“So.” The monster stopped crying and looked up. “Could I please hide under your bed??
“How long?” I demanded.
“Well, I’d love to stay forever, but really, just for a week or two, just to get relaxed and rested, and calmed down. Please!”
“Okay,” I sighed.
“Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!” my Irrational Fears almost slobbered on the carpet in gratitude. “And as long as I’m under there, what the heck, you won't have to worry about a thing, not even whether you’re drinking decaf or not! I promise. “
“Great,” I nodded. “This way towards the bedroom.”
I pulled up the bed ruffle so it could slide under. “One other thing,” the monster looked up at me, hopeful.”
“What?” I asked.
“Could you leave a little night light on under here?”

(Author's note: this micro story was inspired by seeing an ad for a $25 circular shaped plastic light, powered by ultra modern LED's emitting a blue light. Advertised as the perfect thing to buy to put under a kid's bed and to keep the monsters away. The manufacturer guarantees the lights "will burn until the child outgrows fear of monsters.")

The Little Boy Who Cried "Dinosaur!"

Once upon a time there was a little boy who thought it was stupid to cry “wolf!” He decided to cry “dinosaur!” instead. After all, dinosaurs are much larger and faster than wolves and have bigger teeth. The little boy decided it ought to scare people a lot more if he yelled, “dinosaur!”

It didn’t work out that way. People got tired of him yelling “Dinosaur!” all the time. Worse, the dinosaurs became worried he would call attention to them. “Everybody thinks we’re extinct” they muttered, “and we like it that way. No taxes, no door to door solicitors, etc.” But this kid yelling “dinosaur!” all the time, that made them nervous. People might notice.

So.

The dinosaurs told the wolves to eat him.



Moral of the story—worry about the real stuff that’s scary enough and don’t try to stir up trouble over things that don’t exist.

Nebuqualmlia

“It’s called a nebuqualmlia” she said.

“A what?” I asked.

“Nebu-qualm-lia” she said slowly.

“What’s it mean?” I inquired.

“It’s the feeling of not quite having a good feeling about something.”

“Sort of like being ambivalent?”

“Only with more force and less decisiveness,” she replied.

“How can you be decisive and ambivalent at the same time?” I was puzzled.

“You can’t” then she went on, explaining, “When you’re ambivalent, it means you don’t care and can be pushed along. When you’re nebuqulamlious, it means you can be pushed along but you’ve got an odd feeling it is all going to end badly.”

“Like in a war, or a few extra pounds you’ll never get off, or your parents finding out?” I asked.

“Almost, but worse.”

“How could it be worse?” I wanted to know.

“It ends in one of those bad things, but nobody who knows you ever finds out about it, or if they do, they never mention it, and you have to live with you having gone along because you were too scared, or ambivalent, or lazy, and it all coming out hurting people and yourself, BUT you can’t say a thing because nobody knows.”

“WOW!” I was impressed. Nebuqualmlia! That is so complicated. It must be very rare!”

“No,” she said. “It’s actually common as dirt—it’s just the word that’s rare.”

Epson PhotoCenter - My Albums - Album Index

Epson PhotoCenter - My Albums - Album Index
This photo album contains 46 high quality pictures of flowers in my wife's garden. Click on any thumbnail to see an enlarged picture. Then click on the picture again to see an enlargement that should fit most PC windows as computer wallpaper.

My Dad's Magic Bellybutton

My Dad’s Magic Navel
By Joel Haas


One Christmas in the early 1950s, my mother bought several jumbo size cellophane bags of plastic toy cars. Plastics were just beginning to be used in making toys. Each bag, must have contained hundreds of toy cars about an inch long moulded in a variety of shapes and colors representing a wide range of cars then on the road.

It did not take my parents long to discover the promise of being given one or two of these little cars was a powerful incentive for my two younger brothers and I to behave. After supper, if we had been good and Mom and Dad were inclined to reward us, we’d each get a little car or two.

Their stroke of genius was in the presentation.

After concealing several tiny cars up his sleeve, Dad would lie upon the couch and, accompanied by hysterical grimaces, howls, and gyrations, “give birth” to toy cars by pulling them out of his bellybutton!

We boys always enjoyed the show almost as much as getting the cars. And, of course, we were in awe of Dad’s bellybutton. A thorough canvas of our friends demonstrated how lucky we were—nobody else’s father could do anything remotely like it.

My mother must have bought many bags of toy cars because this went on for years. Of course, she probably “recycled” some of the cars to the secret supply whenever she was cleaning up after us. Next to Lincoln Logs and little Monopoly houses, the toy cars were the most common litter we’d leave on the rug.

One summer morning, my brothers and I seized our only chance to view the inner workings of the “magic bellybutton.”

It was a Saturday in June, not yet 5:30 am but the sun was already up and so were my brothers and I. We always got up early Saturdays—literally at the crack of dawn—to see “Sunrise Theater,” a local television channel’s offering of B grade—or even C grade—horror and science fiction movies.

Passing down the hall to the den, I glanced into my parents’ bedroom. There, lying like a beached whale, Dad snored away, oblivious to the fact his pajama shirt was open.

The great mystery of the magic bellybutton might yet be plumbed!

Gathering my brothers, I took the flashlight from the laundry room, and then, crept to our parents’ bedside. Now, my parents slept in a very high and old fashioned bed. I, as the oldest, was the only one tall enough to gaze down into “the source.” Michael was tall enough to hold the flashlight in both hands over Dad’s stomach. John, still in “footie” pajamas, was along for moral support.

My father was a very rotund man, so adjust as he might; Michael could not get the flashlight to shine all the way down into Dad’s navel. Frustrated by this shadow, I suddenly took the initiative and plunged my chubby, childish index finger as far and hard as I could, right into the pit.

Instantly, Dad sat bolt upright in groggy surprise, Michael reared back, flashlight still in both hands, but now shining squarely into Dad’s face.

“What’s going on here?!” Dad bellowed.

Wisely, Michael moved the flashlight away from Dad’s face while I explained we were looking to see if he had any new cars growing in the bottom of his bellybutton.

“Well, I don’t!” Dad tried hard not to yell. Scooping his old US Army watch from the bedside table, he squinted at it, grumbling, “For the love of Pete! It’s 5:30 in the morning!!!!”

Scowling, he dismissed us. “Y’all go watch your picture show! And I don’t want to hear a peep out of you three! Go on now, so your mother and I can get some sleep!”

As we paraded out the door single file, Michael asked me, “What was it like? Did you feel anything?”

“Yeah,” John reiterated, “What was it like?”

“Kind of gummy,” I said as we entered the hall, “but no cars.”



Joel Haas, Raleigh, NC, November, 2001

How and Why God Made Bats

by Joel Haas

I make animals for the garden. “Whimsical,” most people call them, though they look real enough to me. I suppose “real animals” would look pretty whimsical to a Martian. Owls, hummingbirds, butterflies, cats, and flies would look pretty whimsical if you’d never seen one before.

God is pretty whimsical.

800,000 species of beetles, for crying out loud! Hard shelled creatures with sloshy yellow blood breathing through their six legs??!!? And here’s another thing. Fish! Fish breathe underwater through their gills which are where you’d expect there’d be ears. Sound travels best underwater and God blows off giving fish ears!!!???

And talk about a product merchandising nightmare….BATS!!!
Can you imagine going to Jehovah, CEO of The Universe Unltd., to pitch a concept like bats? !

So, The Almighty and the arch-angels are doing a power lunch at the Four Seasons and God wants to know what’s on tap for the Spring mesozoic collection.
“Hey, Big J.,” Gabriel trumpets, “have I got a high concept for you!”
“Talk to me, Gabe, baby, but make it snappy. Contrary to popular opinion, I do not have all the time in the world.”
“You’re gonna love it!” Gabriel scoots back his chair and whips out his horn and a few charts.
“Enough with the horn already,” arch- angel Michael grumbled. “Save it for the ad campaign.”
“Spill it,” God agreed, airily conjuring lit cigars and brandy all around.
“Sure,” Gabriel said. “Think mice. Think blind mice. Think blind mice with wings!”
The Almighty’s brow furrowed in puzzlement. “This is not another one of your hare-brained schemes like marsupials or nipples on men is it?”
“No! No!,” Gabriel insisted, “This addresses a real need with a real product solution. Think blind mice with wings and huge ears!!!”
“What keeps’em from running into stuff?” arch-angel Michael asked.
“They scream,” Gabe beamed. “It’s a real high-pitched scream only stray dogs and burglar alarms can detect.”
Everybody around the table looked at Gabe blankly. “Don’t you see?”
Gabe continued, “They scream and the noise bounces off stuff and comes back to them! That’s why they’ve got the big ears!”
“Sort of like Sonar in “Run Silent, Run Deep,” God exclaimed.
“Exactly!” Gabe beamed. The Boss had caught on without his prompting. He was going to get backing for his project after all.
“But…why?” arch-angel George insisted. “We know it flies around screaming so nobody can hear it and not bump into things, but what does it do?”
“Bugs. Eats flying bugs.” Gabriel, folding his wings and arms, leaned back--triumphant. Now was the time for icing on the cake.
“And since it doesn’t need to see to fly, it can patrol for flying insects night or day.!”
“Pretty ingenious,” the other arch-angels muttered glumly. Gabe was going to get the green light for this project and they could see their own budgets being cut or frozen.
“What sort of habitat and lifestyle have you got laid out for these things?” God asked.
Gabe cleared his throat. “Well,” he began, “ They’re pretty small and we need them in large numbers to be effective, so I figure they’ll live in large colonies hanging upside down in caves, crapping all over themselves and the creatures below them.”
“Charming,” arch-angel Michael sniffed.
“Can’t be helped,” Gabe answered cheerily. “Caves are a natural landfill anyway.”
A low roll of thunder shook the head of the table. Turning, the angels saw The Almighty’s visage darken.
“Flying day or night?” Jehovah rumbled, his beard glowing like a burning bush.
“Er…yes…quite,” Gabe felt a nervous sweat break out along his wings and forehead.
“Beetles fly during the day,” God thundered. “They’d eat a lot of beetles.”
“Why, yes, they would,” arch-angel Michael agreed. “Yes, yes.” The others chimed in, seeing their opening to kill Gabriel’s project. A lifetime’s close study of the universe could only yield one certain fact about The Almighty, as J.B.S. Haldane had noted –God is uncommon fond of beetles.
With over 800,000 species known and Jehovah cobbling together a few more every week-end, Gabriel realized he had just messed with The Boss’ favorite project.
“Day or night…” Gabe started in hasty desperation, “ What I meant was, which do you prefer? Sir? Ma’am? Your Whateverness?”
“Well, I…hmm…” God pondered.
“You never really liked those night-flying beetles.” Gabe ventured. “You know, the ones with the glowing butts.”
“Weeeellll….yeeeessss” The Almighty mused. “Never did think that was really quite aesthetically pleasing. If anything were going to have a glowing rear-end so they could roam around in the dark screwing each other, it should have been lawyers….not my beetles.”
“That’s perfect, Your Whateverness!” Gabe sensed he’d saved the situation. “We can have these creatures only fly around at night when they’ll eat mosquitoes, fireflies, and moths! You never did much like moths either!”
“True enough,” God rumbled, swallowing the last of the brandy. “See to getting these things worked up, Gabe, and spread them out over the face of the Earth as you see fit.”
Which is how we got a screeching, blind, night-flying rat that eats bugs and hangs upside down to shit on itself.
“We shouldn’t have to bear all these costs of internal development,” arch-angel Michael complained while putting on his celestial robes and picking up harp and halo at the hat-check counter . He slapped his halo on angrily. “If moths were such a problem, we could have at least gotten an outside contractor bid from Orkin. The Purchasing Department is never consulted in these cases!”